Nuts Trump Olive Oil in Battling the Metabolic Syndrome

We’ve written elsewhere about the health benefits of olive oil and the importance of virgin olive oil. Also about various types of nuts. Now Spanish researchers have done a comparative study of the use of a Mediterranean diet together with either virgin olive oil or mixed nuts to see which ‘supplement’ has the greater benefit. They chose to use patients with the metabolic syndrome, and they published their findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Patients with the metabolic syndrome were recruited and allocated to one of three forms of treatment: the Mediterranean Diet plus either 1 liter/week of virgin olive oil or 30 grams/day of mixed nuts, or a low-fat diet (the controls). The study lasted one year.

At baseline, 61% of the subjects met the strict criteria for the metabolic syndrome. After one year, this frequency was reduced by 6.7% with the Med-Diet plus olive oil, by 13.7% by the Med-Diet plus mixed nuts, and by 2.0% by the low-fat diet. Not surprisingly, the benefit of the Mediterranean Diet plus mixed nuts was statistically superior to the diet plus virgin olive oil and a low-fat diet.

The authors of the study concluded that a traditional Mediterranean Diet enriched with 30 grams a day of mixed nuts could be useful in managing the metabolic syndrome. They could not make a similar claim for virgin olive oil . . . So, once again, pass the nuts, please.

Comments

[Herbal Malc]

Interesting study! Wow - fancy consuming a litre of olive oil a week!

I would just say - if taking the nut treatment, favour walnuts as they have by far the best omega6/omega 3 profile of the nuts.