Brazil nuts and cholesterol
To be honest with you, this is one of the craziest studies you’ve never heard of. The medical experts in this study were feeding people a single serving of Brazil nuts to see what it would do to the cholesterol levels of healthy volunteers.
So, what they did? Well, the medical experts in this study gave ten men and women a single meal containing zero, one, four, or eight Brazil nuts. The medical experts actually found that the ingestion of just that single serving almost immediately improved cholesterol levels. They’ve discovered that the LDL, or so-called “bad” cholesterol levels in the blood, was significantly lower starting just nine hours after the ingestion of nuts, and by no insignificant amount, nearly 20 points within a day. This is really amazing discovery, because even the cholesterol drugs don’t work that fast. It takes statins around four days to have a significant effect.
And, you will be shocked when we tell you that’s not even the crazy part. You should also know that the researchers went back and measured their cholesterol five days later, and then 30 days later. Remember, the participants weren’t eating Brazil nuts this whole time. The participants in this study just had that single serving of Brazil nuts a month before and their cholesterol was still down 30 days later. And their cholesterol levels went down and stayed down, after eating just four nuts. This is really amazing, right?
And, now you probably ask yourself: this study was conducted by group of Brazilian researchers? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is no, the study was not funded by the Brazil nut industry.
How many Brazil nuts should you eat?
As we said, this is really amazing, because the researchers found that just four Brazil nuts actually seemed to work faster than the eight nuts to lower bad cholesterol and boost good cholesterol. So, the results from this study suggest that eating just four nuts might be enough to improve the levels of LDL and HDL for up to 30 days, and maybe longer—they didn’t test past 30.
What do you think?
Well yes, we know that this study looks like a “too-good-to-be-true study” and we all (including other medical experts) want to wait to see the results replicated before we change our clinical practice and recommend something to our readers and patients, especially when the study is done on only ten people, and especially when the findings are literally just too incredible to be believed.
But, we shouldn’t worry too much, because this “method” is cheap, easy, harmless and healthy. This is too easy – you just have to eat four Brazil nuts a month. We highly recommend that you should do it – until it’s proven otherwise. They medical experts have found that a single serving was sufficient “without producing liver and kidney toxicity.” Well, they were probably thinking about the high selenium content of Brazil nuts—so high that four eaten every day may actually bump us up against the tolerable daily limit for selenium, but not something we have to worry about if we’re just eating four once a month. But, you should know that even if the study was just a fluke, Brazil nuts may help prevent death by improving the function of our arteries and fighting cancer and inflammation.
You should eat Brazil nuts every day, because they are loaded with healthy nutrients and they can provide many health benefits. We really hope you find this article helpful and don’t forget to share it with your friends and family. Thank You.
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