See What Happens To Your Body When You Start Eating More Walnuts
Walnuts are wrinkly, bumpy, double lobed nuts of the Juglandaceae family. walnuts can be enjoyed raw, toasted, and sprinkled atop many dishes and desserts to add some buttery crunch. Walnuts also happen to be among the world’s healthiest foods.
Here are 6-Reasons to Eat More Walnuts
1.Walnuts Are Rich in Antioxidants
In addition to its Vitamin-C and E content, walnuts provide other important antioxidants. According to a study published in Food Chemistry, walnut kernels are composed of at least seven phenolic compounds that display strong antioxidant activity. Of these, four were found to display higher free radical scavenging activity than Trolox, a positive control with a similar biochemical structure to Vitamin-E.
2.Walnuts Are a Good Source of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats that provide a myriad of health benefits. These dietary fats have been associated with the prevention of cardiovascular disease, preserving cognitive function, and boosting fetal development. eating just four walnuts per day for three weeks boosted ALA content in blood and significantly increased EPA and DHA levels as compared to baseline levels.
3.Walnuts Promote a Healthy Gut
The microbiome of the human gut contains tens of trillions of microorganisms, with at least 1,000 distinct species of bacteria and more than 3-million genes.
Each individual’s gut bacteria is as unique as a fingerprint.
An imbalance of gut flora plays a role in many disparate diseases – from ulcers to cancer to psychiatric disorders – so keeping your digestive-system happy is well advised. The easiest way to alter the composition of your gut-bacteria is through your diet, by eating more probiotics and prebiotics. Although not a prebiotic by definition, walnuts may act as a prebiotic by selectively promoting and increasing the activity and volume of good bacteria in the gut.
4.Walnuts for Appetite & Weight Control
Like all nuts, walnuts are dense in calories. And yet, in numerous studies investigating the health benefits of walnuts, participants who added them to their existing diet did not gain weight – even while the number of calories consumed increased.
Walnuts are high in fiber, a carbohydrate that passes through the body undigested. High fiber foods tend to produce feelings of satiety. Walnuts also have a good polyunsaturated to saturated fats ratio, which can kick off diet induced thermogenesis, a natural process that helps boost the metabolism, speeds-up fat burning, and suppresses appetite.
5.Walnuts Boost Brainpower
Although all types of nuts are great brain food, walnuts appear to have an edge over the rest.
Because walnuts are enriched with antioxidants, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals, eating them on the regular also has a neuroprotective effect by slowing brain aging and lowering the risk of chronic neurodegenerative disorders later in life.
6.Walnuts Improve Male Fertility
Selenium, zinc, folate, vitamins C and E, and polyunsaturated fatty acids are some of the nutrients believed to be beneficial for sperm health and mobility. Because walnuts are rich in many of these elements, researchers investigated how eating walnuts might affect sperm vitality in a 2012 study.
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