Our view of nuts, in particular tree nuts, as dietary components has undergone an evolution. Nuts are an essential ingredient in many formulations because of their richness and subtle flavors. But that richness is due to fat content, which can be 80 percent of the calories in most nuts. If you are counting calories, that’s a whopping 800 per cup, give or take a few. So dieters had to eat nuts with caution.
Recently, the reputation of nuts soared with the dual realization that not all fats are equal (and the fats in nuts happen to be among the healthiest) and that nuts are a rich source of phytochemicals, including some with strong antioxidant action.
Understanding Antioxidants
In theory, antioxidants help to protect the body from the biological equivalent of rust: oxidation. It happens when byproducts of living and doing business in an oxygen environment, often referred to as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), attempt to share their unpaired electrons with body proteins, membranes or even DNA itself, resulting in damaging links that negatively affect health. Data from large observational studies consistently reveal a link between nut consumption and lowered the risk of several diseases where oxidative stress may play a role. For example, four major epidemiological studies, including the Nurses’ Health Study, the Physicians’ Health Study, the Iowa Women’s Health Study and the Adventist Health Study, have all shown that frequent nut consumption is associated with a decreased risk of coronary heart disease events.
Bolling concludes, “[clinical studies that] examine separately the impact of nut components such as the skin, meat and oil, while incorporating appropriate control groups could provide important new information in this regard and should be undertaken.”
One such study was reported last year in Clinical Nutrition, titled “Neuroprotective effects of almond skins in experimental spinal cord injury.” This study looked at the potential of almond skins to protect against injury secondary to spinal cord injury in mice. These secondary complications include inflammation, microvascular dysfunction at the site of injury, free radicals formation, lipid peroxidation and accumulation of excitatory neurotransmitters, leading to further neural damage. Treatment with natural almond skins one and six hours after spinal cord injury reduced all parameters of inflammation as neutrophil infiltration, suggesting treatment with compounds from almond skins to reduce the development of inflammation and tissue injury could be useful in the treatment of spinal cord injury in the future.
