Nuts May Avert Heart Disease

A handful of nuts a day may keep heart attack away, according to a group of researchers at Loma Linda University. A six-year study of diet and fatal coronary heart disease among 34,000 California members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church found that nuts were the only food item listed with a statistically significant protection against heart-attack death.

“Compared to a person who never ate nuts, a person who ate them at least once a day had only 47% of the risk” of fatal heart attack, said Dr. Gary E. Fraser, co-author of a study presented last week at the Second International Conference of Preventive Cardiology in Washington.

Fraser said the data was collected through questionnaires mailed between 1976 and 1982. In a follow-up study, the researchers found that there had been 260 fatal heart attacks among those surveyed earlier. The scientists then compared answers on the dietary questionnaires to determine what foods, if any, tended to suggest protection against heart disease.

Fraser said nuts appeared to be the major common food that protected against heart disease. Peanuts were the most commonly consumed nut--chosen by about 60% of those questioned.

Fraser said it is not now known what in nuts can provide protection from heart attack, but he speculated that it could be the types of polyunsaturated vegetable fats.