Nuts Improve Diet Quality Compared to Other Energy-Dense Snacks While Maintaining Body Weight

Abstract

Previous studies have reported that regular nut consumption reduces cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and does not promote weight gain despite the fact that nuts are energy-dense. However, no studies have investigated the body composition of those regularly consuming nuts compared to similar intakes of other snacks of equal energy density. This parallel study (n = 118) examined the effects of providing daily portions (~1100 kJ/d) of hazelnuts, chocolate, or potato crisps compared to a control group receiving no snacks for twelve weeks. Effects on body weight and composition, blood lipids and lipoproteins, resting metabolic rate (RMR), appetite indices, and dietary quality were compared. At week 12, there was no significant difference in any of the outcome measurements between the groups except for dietary quality, which improved significantly in the nut group. Nuts can be incorporated into the diet without adversely affecting body weight and can improve diet quality.

Untitled

“…The cholesterol-lowering properties of nuts are largely due to their unsaturated fat content, but also due to other bioactive compounds [30,31]. Similar to previous studies, we observed a significant increase in unsaturated fat intake with the addition of nuts to the regular diet [18,24]. A lack of change for lipids in our study is likely to be due to the fact that the groups studied were both healthy and relatively young.…”

“…Although nuts are high in fat and energy dense, a number of studies have shown that their regular inclusion into the diet results in less weight gain than is predicted [14][15][16][17][18]. This is the first study that has shown this in an ethnic group with a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity [3].…”

“…Furthermore, some but not all studies report improvements in markers of inflammation [12,13]. Importantly, although nuts are energy dense, most intervention studies report no significant weight gain with the addition of nuts to the habitual diet [14][15][16][17][18].…”

Changes in diet quality during a 12 month weight loss randomised controlled trial

“…Regardless of the index used the high diet quality scores for IW is consistent with studies when walnuts and nuts more generally were provided in controlled portions [69][70][71][72][73][74]. It has been suggested that providing nuts may improve diet quality by displacing consumption of other less nutritious foods [70].…”

“…The consumption of walnuts (and other nuts) is associated with cardio-protective effects [78,79] including improving serum lipid profiles [80] without promoting weight gain [81]. Providing these foods in trial settings may support adherence towards dietary interventions [69][70][71][72][73][74] provided quantities for consumption were deemed acceptable [72]. At least in the trial setting, providing a healthy food supplement, such as walnuts, in trials appears to lead to superior adherence and improvements in diet quality outcomes.…”