Thirty years ago a study reported a lower risk of fatal heart attacks in people who ate nuts four times a week.
Since then scores of studies have shown the same general conclusion, popped out in the news, then got forgotten til the next one. Last week a mega review whittled them down to just 42 “cohort” studies on 1.9 million people and concluded that yes, nuts really do reduce heart disease deaths by around 25%, it’s “probably causal” say the researchers. And it most likely works through reducing blood lipids, though it might be displacing something bad.
They did also look at 18 randomized controlled studies of just 2,266 people to check for causality.
My thought for the day is if, in the extreme case, 1 in 4 heart attacks are caused by a nut deficiency and solveable with a daily dose of 50 cents worth of nuts, we could save quite a few people, not to mention hospital budgets. Coronary Heart Disease remains the biggest killer in the West. In the USA 700,000 people die of it nearly every year, which means something like 150,000 people might theoretically still be alive had they eaten more nuts. And that’s just in the US.
It might be cost effective (not to mention humane) if our Ministry of Health tried to get the message out. This would seem extra sensible given that excess deaths are up 12 – 15% across the West for other unmentionable reasons. But then sensible things don’t seem to happen in government health departments.
I’m not suggesting that nuts per se are some magical medical intervention, because there are many other useful things we can do. I’m just saying that there is low hanging fruit sitting there that our Government Health Machines have little interest in. The Minister of Health isn’t handing out cashew nuts in carparks, or giving the poorest of the poor nut-subsidies. Does the Minister really want to keep people out of the Emergency Ward?
No one seems to be training doctors to ask patients if they eat any nuts at all. But patented drugs with similarish ball park figures (and many side effects) get the red carpet rolled out. Our brightest of the bright are trained for six years to write special licences for people to get these patented profitable answers.
There is a pattern here and all roads lead to a pile of money.
In terms of deaths from heart disease the big benefits come in the first ten grams a day — just getting those people who don’t normally eat any nuts to eat a few will probably save the most lives.
Figure 6b: Linear (red, dashed line) and non-linear dose-response (black lines with confidence intervals) association between total nuts and seeds consumption and coronary heart disease mortality (panel B; 9 studies) in cohort studies, with 0 g/day as reference. Circles show the effect estimates for each level of intake in the individual studies, weighted by the inverse of the standard errors. Vertical axes are log scaled.
In terms of total risk of heart disease — which still has a big effect on quality of life — the benefits appear to accrue up to 20g a day or even more.
Figure 6a: Linear (red, dashed line) and non-linear dose-response (black lines with confidence intervals) association between total nuts and seeds consumption and risk of total coronary heart disease (panel A; 14 studies), with 0 g/day as reference. Circles show the effect estimates for each level of intake in the individual studies, weighted by the inverse of the standard errors. Vertical axes are log scaled.
Studies of associations with diet and death are notoriously confounded, but with 1.9 million participants and follow up times of up to 23 years long, there is an awful lot of data suggesting that people who eat more nuts have healthier hearts. The paper itself has 167 references. It is a tome.
Eating nuts and seeds may reduce risk of heart disease
By Cara Murez, HealthDay News
One way to reduce the risk of heart disease: Eat more nuts and seeds, according to a new review of 60 studies.
Scandinavian researchers found that eating nuts could reduce the risk of a heart attack.
“If you eat a handful of nuts every day, that is around 30 grams, you will have a 20% to 25% lower risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease. In comparison, adults in the Nordic countries only eat on average around 4 grams of nuts a day. Many do not eat nuts or seeds at all,” said study co-author Erik Arnesen, research fellow at the University of Oslo.
Although scientists say, “the more the better,” eating just a few nuts is better than none at all, Arnesen said in a university news release.
Almonds, pistachios and walnuts appeared to be the best for lowering cholesterol. However, researchers said there is no conclusive evidence for recommending specific kinds of nuts over others.
“Nuts have a beneficial effect on cholesterol levels in the blood, which is important to keep low in order to prevent the buildup of fat in the arteries. This atherosclerosis, as it is called, is one of the greatest risk factors for heart attacks,” Arnesen explained.
The review involved nearly 2 million participants. Although researchers also investigated whether eating nuts reduced the risk of strokes and Type 2 diabetes, the results were not as clear.
Nuts do not appear to affect blood pressure, Arnesen said. Researchers could not determine whether they affect blood sugar.
But eating nuts is linked to improved cholesterol levels, even though the review can’t actually prove cause and effect.
“Thanks to this systematic review and meta-analysis, we can present a more precise estimate of the actual effects. Proving that nuts lower cholesterol levels provides a credible explanation for why there is a connection between eating nuts and the risk of cardiovascular disease,” Arnesen said.
REFERENCE
Arnesen et al (2023) Nuts and seeds consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and their risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Food Nutr Res. 2023; 67: 10.29219/fnr.v67.8961.
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Fine, I’m a peanut junkie 😀
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Not a nut! Peanuts are beans!
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Nevertheless:
Peanut Consumption and Risk of Stroke and Ischemic Heart Disease in Japanese Men and Women: The JPHC Study
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Does peanut paste have the same effect?
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The pure one certainely yes, I prefer in case the crunchy cream without any adds.
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Good news…I plough through a large packet of cashews every week, but almonds, peanuts and walnuts are also regularly on the menu as a between meals snack because I like them…but this info makes them even more desirable.
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The fact that eating more nuts, seeds and fruit as part of a healthy diet has been known for quite a while, so I’m not sure why it is seen as news. Eating too much red meat doesn’t help either, with sat fat intake being correlated with elevated risk of heart disease. I know that there has been a slew of research lately claiming otherwise but it seems hard to ignore over 50 years of evidence for the opposite. The generally recognised best diet is the Med diet which is low in red meat, poultry and eggs, but includes healthy fats such as oily fish, olive oil and avocadoes.
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That is probably all our ancient forebears did eat. I don’t know if any became octogenarians but our average life in Australia is over 80 and we eat a lot of red meat. Perhaps it is our medical system that keeps many “should be dead” alive.
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And a relaxed stress free lifestyle, as a retiree explained to me a couple of decades ago about his Queensland coastal retirement choice, “the newly wed and the nearly dead”.
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I never pay any attention to statistical analyses. The reason could be something entirely unconnected with nuts. Statistics have a place when the inputs are completely under control, such as in geological modelling, but these sort of open queries are pointless.
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You have a point – Lies, damn lies, and statistics’ Without full knowledge of the suituation statistics are very easy to manipulate.
I still remember my year ten maths teacher telling the story about the pith helmet.
They were introduced because a report show 50% of the deaths in the Bristh Indian army were cause by sunstroke…. The ‘other’ death was a Tiger attack.
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The origin of the Prendegast and Ponsonby joke about dealing with the “banded snake”?
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Uber, it’s true the world of medicine is full of junk dietary “associations” — everyone in medical science knows that they are confounded, and that wealthy, healthy people with good genes may coincidentally choose to “eat more nuts” than people who didn’t get lucky in the gene stakes. But if you like the idea of living longer you may not want to wait for the twenty year long randomized controlled trial of a million people that will never happen.
It’s very rare for medical papers to declare a causal link with dietary associations — but after thirty years where results are consistent and supported by smaller RCT trials showing a mechanism of action — maybe enough is enough.
I added a line into the post to reflect that the big Cohort studies results were confirmed by the small RCT trials.
“They did also look at 18 randomized controlled studies of just 2,266 people to check for causality.”
The conclusion that eating foods that humans-genetically-evolved-to-eat can protect against heart damage is a not a risky leap.
PS: I also added a couple of graphs into the post that I meant to put in. For whatever that’s worth. Most of the mortality benefits come in the first ten grams. But general broader cardiovascular health seems to improve with 20 or even 30 grams of nuts.
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Humans have evolved to eat primarily meat. Just prior to the agricultural revolution 10000-20000 years ago humans are best classified as hypercarnivores, with the vast majority of the food eaten (70-80%) being animals, with the rest being whatever else was available as forage. This also makes sense logically, since outside of very specific seasons the plant kingdom does not provide enough nutrition for a human to survive long-term, especially in places with a real winter. Humans also cannot digest seeds at all without lengthy preparation, and the nutrition quality and content is lower due to the presence of antinutrients. One example of antinutrients is drinking milk with spinach, you will get almost no calcium because the oxalates in spinach will chelate the calcium and you will not absorb it. Seeds and nuts are preferred by those, however, who want to live in a healthy way.
This study is just another one in a long list of studies that conflates causality with the so-called healthy user bias (among other lesser flaws). In short, healthy user bias means that those who eat what is perceived to be healthy also engage in other healthy lifestyles, as in exercise, do not smoke, drink less alcohol and sugar as well as keep their weight in check. Those who do not care about dietary recommendations and eat more meat (and less nuts/seeds/vegetables) also generally exercise less, smoke more, drink more alcohol, eat sugar, do not care about their weight and so on. This significant confounder has been present in every one of the studies (dozens, perhaps over a hundred) that I have looked at, but it is always ignored and is supposed to be accounted by multivariate analysis, which is nonsense. Effectively that methodology is the hockey stick generator of the nutrition world. If you repeat a flawed methodology for decades and get the same results, that does not mean the results are good. You’d need to stratify the control and intervention groups based on those lifestyle factors (as in remove smokers, alcohol drinkers and so on so that the most significant confounders do not need statistical trickery to “account for”), but then you’d have a less-powered study and also possibly results you wouldn’t like.
Another thing is the very low change in relative incidence (so-called relative risk). For observational epidemiological studies risk ratios below 2 and often higher than 2 are meaningless in terms of causality because of both known and unknown confounders. Smoking and lung cancer is about the last such association that was strong and you could draw a relatively reasonable causal inference on, and there the risk ratios were in the order of a hundred, not 2 or 0.8 as it is here.
One word on your inclusion of the RCTs as a bolstering of the argument, I do not believe it was done deliberately, but the RCTs do not show what you think they show. Heart disease was not measured at all, just weak (and in my view non-) proxies, the studies were relatively short duration (all except one less than 6 months), and the methods included such gems as food frequency questionnaires, which are known to be very unreliable. The word “controlled” is also a lie in this context, as they would best be described as randomized interventional trials. No variables except the intervention were controlled, such as behavior, exercise or food intakes. In one, for example, food intake was measured using a 1-day 24-hour diet recall both before and after the intervention, while the intervention lasted for 90 days. Can you be considered to have eaten what you ate yesterday for the past 90 days? The proxies for heart disease risk also fall back to the now mostly-bunk lipid hypothesis, where high cholesterol is causally blamed for atherosclerosis. I can change my blood lipids dramatically within a few days just by changing how much I eat, and I have tested this repeatedly over the years by getting blood tests a few days apart and only changing how much (not even the type of food) I eat as the intervention.
I could write entire essays on this subject from the point of view of human physiology, anthropology, evolutionary history, biochemistry, statistical inferences, pure logic and so on with relevant references, but to put it in the climate context, nutritional epidemiology is roughly equal to a hockey stick generator, nutritional meta-analyses are climate model ensembles, RCTs (or RITs as classified above) are individual climate model runs, and nutritional guidelines are the carbon footprint in terms of accuracy and trustworthiness.
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Lauri, I’m sorry 700 words is too long. Be aware we can’t approve future comments this long. FWIW as good at consuming meat as we are the genetic and evolutionary evidence suggest humans are omnivores. It’s true Eskimos were nearly pure carnivore, but other human groups (eg Indians) were and are vegetarian and every variation in between. Plant food was common except in northern winters. Our tooth anatomy, intestinal length etc have more in common with omnivores.
I was aware the RCTs didn’t include CHD deaths. The point of the RCT’s was not to replicate the large cohort studies (or we’d use them and not the cohorts). Five RCT’s were crossover trials so they were their own matched control groups, they didn’t need to control anything. The large cohort studies usually collect data and match for variables etc and many other papers have been published on sleep patterns, smoking, hormone therapy, physical activity, BMI, exercise etc in these same cohort groups. And being a “Nurses” study most participants are in a similar socio economic group. See The Nurses Health Study. Ditto for doctors who don’t eat nuts being compared to doctors who do. The adjustments for BMI which almost all cohort studies did is so built in it… “could be an example of over-adjustment possibly underestimating associations…”
Problems with dietary association are well known (as I explained previously). We either throw out millions of data points and wait for the perfect trials which won’t happen (because ethically we can’t randomize people for twenty year long diets) or we do the best we can with what we have. You don’t have to eat nuts 🙂 These studies are not remotely like the Hockey Stick.
Ultimately, among 2 million people, the people who ate the most nuts died less often than those who ate the least. The dose effect was loosely linear, the RR’s were consistent and the sample was huge.
Are there any studies showing nuts increase mortality? If these cohort results are pure chance, then there would be some results like that. The researchers consider the risk of lifestyle confounding (read the Discussion p25). They point out that it’s possible but hard to explain why nut eaters who are more likely to eat a better diet showed reductions in heart disease but not in diabetes or stroke.
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Sorry, nutrition has become sort of a passion of mine over the last 5 or so years, and I tend to get carried away when discussing it. First let me make clear, my intent was not to demonize nuts, the poison is always in the dose and in genetics. It was simply to point out that assigning any kind of causal relationship (negative or positive) to 10 or 20 grams of nuts a day when the field is as confounded as it is is wishful thinking at best. I also do not accept the argument that those associations must be accepted because they are the best that there is and can be, as that same argument can be made of climate models and climate science. Even if it is the best that can be done, if it is insufficient then other means or methods of study must be used or developed.
One of those is looking at evolution and physiology (mechanistic evidence) much closer. Your point about tooth anatomy and intestinal length is one of many superficial arguments that fail if one looks deeper. Tooth anatomy is a function of evolutionary necessity, and as humans are tool users the tools removed the evolutionary impetus for developing ripping and tearing claws and teeth. Intestinal function is also more important than intestinal length, and if you look at any basic anatomy texts, the small intestine is responsible for upwards of 90% of nutrient absorption. This is significant since the small intestine only deals with enzymatic digestion, while the large intestine has the bacterial colony of the gut and deals with fibrous material. Humans can therefore get only very little nutrition from fibrous plants without preparation (cooking, fermenting etc). Starchy plants are also fairly rare in the wild, especially in the winter. The digestive tract of a wolf is a close analogy of that of the humans in function.
As nuts are technically fruits, they no doubt played some role in human diet even before cooking allowed for more utilization of cultivated grains, for example, but again their relative scarcity and no specific mechanism of action makes the claims in the study questionable. Most modern health problems are, in my view, due to the combination of excessive PUFA, carbohydrates and sugar, and too little animal nutrition. Historically the problems started to skyrocket as the first nutrition recommendations of the 60s and 70s (as well as massive increase in seed oil use) started getting implemented.
One interesting study of the human trophic level is Ben-Dor, M, Sirtoli, R, Barkai, R. The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene. Yearbook Phys Anthropol. 2021; 175( Suppl. 72): 27– 56. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24247
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Welcome to the world of food science. I’ve been passionate about nutrition myself for 25 years. The best analysis of the cohort studies and all other published papers were the folks at the CR society aiming for longevity and vested in getting their bets correctly by restricting their calories 10 – 30%. They used to grind through those details.
The carnivore plan obviously works for you (so far), perhaps you have more arctic genes? All humans didn’t necessarily evolve to eat the same thing, though it seems important to you for some reason?. :-). Our tooth morphology is as I said omnivore, and obviously so, and whether or not a few human tribes used spears and stone tools to compensate and shift to a 100% carnivore plan, doesn’t disprove that most of our genetic stock was carved out in an omnivore era for millions of years, and we still carry those genes. Even your own teeth still have the grinding flat planes to crush nuts. Be a bit wary that elements like phytosterols, polyphenols, K1, Mg, C, Cu, gut flora etc may not be easy to get. I’m sure you know the list. Do you hunt game?
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All humans could also be classified as obligate carnivores, since humans cannot survive, let alone thrive, without animal-derived nutrition (chief among them being B12, but also others like DHA/EPA, certain K2 menaquinones etc). Tool use was also ubiquitous throughout human evolutionary history, as in the very early stages of human evolution the tools used were rocks to get into bone marrow. Meat is actually less important than animal fat, and game meat is generally too lean to sustain any significant human population. One hypothesis for the transition into agriculture was hunting large herbivores (mammoths etc) to extinction, necessitating cultivation of other food sources. And no, I do not hunt game, but occasionally buy it from hunters when in season.
As for nutrition, polyphenols and polysterols are similar to this nuts study, their importance is lauded but there is no specific mechanism of known action for why they would be beneficial. About the best that I’ve been able to figure out is that they have antioxidant properties and perhaps some cholesterol-lowering properties(?). Humans have a strong built-in antioxidant system, so at best they can be helpful in countering the excessive oxidative stress from modern unhealthy diets and lifestyle. Excess PUFA oxidizes very easily and causes excess oxidative stress, for example, not to mention smoking and excess alcohol use.
For vitamin C, even fresh muscle meat is a known antiscorbeutic, as in it cures scurvy. In modern nutrition labeling vitamin C content of meat is assessed as 0, and you’ll need to go for relatively old studies where the vitamin C content is actually measured. It is low compared to the plant kingdom, but so are human vitamin C requirements absent excessive carbohydrates and oxidative stress. Lest we also forget, internal organs such as liver and kidneys are replete in those nutrients, but even just ruminant muscle meat and fat contain all the nutrients a human needs.
The gut microbiome adapts to what you eat, and its study will suffer from the same healthy user bias if one looks for associations between diet, health and specific bacterial strains. If one truly wanted to study the differences between diets, one would need to find populations that have effectively the same lifestyles and baseline characteristics, with the only major difference being diet (and genetics, but that can be offset with a sufficient study population). I’d also like to add that I do not advocate carnivory for everyone, currently my ballpark for minimum animal nutrition that humans should consume is around 50% of calories eaten. Avoiding seed oils and other high-PUFA foods, raw (as opposed to cooked) vegetables, alcohol and processed sugar are higher on the list.
The thread limit seems to have been reached, so I’ll leave it here, but my primary issue was not with what people eat, but rather the excess confidence in weak associations and poor methodology expressed in the study.
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Sigh. Lauri V. Not sure why you feel the need to put things in absolutes? Dare I say you seem to need to prove something to yourself?
Lots of what you say has some truth to it for sure, but framed as absolutes, it’s not correct. Just leave room for exceptions, OK?
Humans aren’t “obligate carnivores”, and, go on, you know that because plenty of vegetarians somehow survive. :- ) I’m a fan of meat and a huge fan of B12, but you may be surprised to find out animals don’t make B12 any more than plants do. It all comes from microbes. In the average diet, most people get B12 from meat, but the richest source of both B12 and K2 is fermented soy beans or “Natto” from Bacillus Subtillis Natto. Vegetarians are often deficient, but they don’t have to be.
Look, you are learning fast and know a lot, just free yourself up from the idea that all humans need the same diet and be open to the idea that the carnivorous diet (especially in it’s modern form) might not be perfect for you or anyone as a long term thing. All diets carry risks. Clearly there’s not much point in me quoting studies on phytosterols etc. One day you might find that more interesting.
As for Vitamin C, I’m very aware of it occurring in freshly killed game — I was wondering if you knew. Ponder that of mammals, only humans/primates and guinea pigs don’t make their own Vitamin C, and most primates eat around 5000mg per “70kg body weight”, which is 50 times higher than the RDA for humans. So even fruit eating humans are at the low low low end of the entire animal kingdom. I’m just saying, there might be more to Vitamin C than you (or any of us) realizes. Just bear in mind that carnivorous diets are risky, like any diet. They just have different risks. I suggest you get your freshly killed game, and eat the offal, livers especially, but also stocks and broth so you are not deficient in glycine or proline. Bear in mind Vitamin C won’t survive long after the animal does.
Far from being “poor methodology” the Nut study makes the best of what is an intractably complex system to study. You may want to wait for the perfect study, I’ll settle for the best info we have, and change my mind as the data comes in. Best of luck and good on you for diving into it as far as you have.
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Vegetarians survive because of fortification and supplementation, as in modern technology has allowed the things that humans need from animals to be created in a laboratory setting to stave off death from lack thereof. If I manage to create a rice porridge that is fortified with all the nutrients a cat needs, does that somehow make cats omnivores or even herbivores? They are still obligate carnivores from an evolutionary perspective, as it is with humans. You are correct that with careful planning and supplementation (barring genetic intolerances), some people are able to subsist on a vegetarian diet even longer-term. I will, however, point out that subsistence and optimal have a wide gulf between them. What are the things plant foods are generally fortified with? Iron, calcium, vitamin A and various B-complex vitamins, exactly the things that meat (and animal foods in general) would provide.
You are correct that natto provides K2, but it is the MK7-menaquinone, while animal foods provide MK4 (among others). Whether this is physiologically meaningful is unknown, but they target different parts of human biochemistry. B12 is not contained in natto, I think maybe you meant tempeh, which does contain some of it. As it, however, is also soy-based, it contains various harmful plant chemicals, such as phytoestrogens, phytates, protease inhibitors and lectins. Humans can deal with some amount of such antinutrients (poison is again in the dose), but if it becomes a staple they can cause problems. Those foods are also available in only a very specific part of the world and haven’t been around for more than about a millennium at most, so they are not relevant from an evolutionary sense.
Vitamin C degrades in fruit and plants just as it does in meat. Fresh meat, however, is available year-round and freezing the meat stops that degradation almost entirely. There are fascinating stories of early arctic explorers where the explorers loaded with citrus supplies were eventually inflicted with scurvy, while those eating fresh seal thrived. When it comes to RDAs, a carbohydrate-based metabolism low in animal foods requires a lot more vitamin C for various reasons, but I’ll not get into that deeper. I also always look at any studies someone quotes, that is why I engage in these discussions.
A final point on B12, even the gut bacteria in humans produces B12, but it is only absorbed in the small intestine, so it is useless. Sometimes I think whether a human engaging in coprophagy could actually be vegetarian without supplementation. I am also aware of some arguments that humans would get sufficient B12 if only everything wasn’t washed so thoroughly (soil bacteria), but those are trace amounts. Humans need B12 from animals for the same reason that some fish have dangerous mercury levels – it accumulates in the foodchain.
In any case I appreciate the discussion and your viewpoints, but at this point I believe there is an impasse, and the forum is not really suited for more in-depth discussion.
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Lauri V, ultimately the most important experiments are the outcome based ones. The longest lived people in the world are neither vegetarian nor carnivore. Natto = K2. Greens = K1 (If you worry about MK-4, why not about K1?). By the way MK-7 increases serum K2 but MK-4 does not (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3502319/) – yet due to genetic differences some people do better with MK-4. Most of the worlds vegetarians are not eating fortified wheeties and milk. No one is “fortifying” spinach, natto and lentils. You are correct Natto isn’t a B12 source, apologies. Perhaps purple laver Nori. Perhaps gut flora is a source contribute to B12 we don’t know. It’s a mystery that 1 – 12% of the world is vegetarian yet they do OK and it’s been going on for hundreds of years long before anyone made synthetic B12. Millions of Buddhists and Hindus.
Best wishes and good luck.
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I don’t know your history of commentary here about concerns with the covid vaccine or not, but do you have the same attitude toward things like excess deaths etc? Pay no attention or say, “Hmmm. That’s funny”?
But yes. There are other factors unaccounted for when just looking at statistics.
Such as that example where there was no difference in survival rate when jumping out of plane from an average 4000 feet (or whatever the numbers was) with or without a parachute.
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Strop,
Counting numbers of deaths is not really statistics.
The big point for this blog topic is the misuse of computational statistics when some causal factors are not included. The outcome is distorted because the contribution of the studied distortions is unbalanced.
An example would be measuring temperature errors at airports without including heat from aircraft. It might be negligible, but you do not know this if you have no measurements of it.
With heart disease and nuts, you have to be sure that you have measured and included all factors that affect heart health. The bad outcome is that eating nuts might look better than it is. It is complicated to control the quality of health studies like this, but strangely that seems to attract medical researchers to statistics use even though others report that more than half of medical research papers fail because they cannot be reproduced.
But I agree with Jo that our medical administrators are remiss by not highlighting this paper with its substantial benefits, if correct, while concentrating more on issues with big money attached.
FWIW.
Geoff S
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Totally get that. Which is why I said, “But yes. There are other factors unaccounted for when just looking at statistics.” I even gave an example of where statistics mislead without all the factors. Thus supporting Uber’s notion of being wary of pure statistics without knowing other factors that are not controlled.
My angle wasn’t whether statistics is a good marker for conclusions or not. It was more along the lines of people tending to adopt what suits them when it suits them. As I said, I don’t know Uber’s history on comments about concerns with vaccines and maybe Uber is being totally consistent with paying no attention to statistical analysis. There are a some who grab a stat because it supports their belief or agenda and happily dismiss (pay no attention) other stats that are inconvenient for them. (not saying that’s Uber’s case)
On stats and conclusions specifically. Obviously we can’t draw conclusions from stats that are derived from an uncontrolled situation. But when statistics show an anomaly generally science doesn’t pay no attention. (although TGA seems to). It says lets have a look at this.
Statistics are a useful tool for highlighting possibilities and science then has the job of putting in the controls to test those possibilities. Rather than paying no attention to statistics.
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If countimng numbers of deaths isn’t statistics, then why does the bureau of statistics do it? 😉
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Uber,
You go too far. Stats is still valid for card games and coin tosses. When it comes to health stuff, my mantra is N = 1; i.e. what is my ideal?
An awful lot of our health is wired-in. I often think of the tale of Paul Landa (a NSW politician) whose dad died of a heart attack at 42 (IIRC) after a life of chain smoking, and eating and drinking too much. Landa vowed that he’d not do that. He lived a much more disciplined 43 years before expiring with a heart attack while playing tennis.
The bell curve is descriptive — it describes the population — but so many health people seem to think that nirvana is at the middle of the bell. So doctors are prescribing statins, blood thinners, etc., to push us all around on the bell curve, quite probably away from our personal ideal spots. It’s madness.
As for food, moderation seems more worthwhile than fetishes about fat or fish or nuts or whatever. My mum, who played on and off at being a vegetarian throughout her life, would occasionally ask: Do vegetarians live longer, or does it just seem longer?
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I don’t eat many nuts but I like peanut butter.
Does that count?
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Queensland Premier Joh was a peanut farmer wasn’t he?
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NUTS!
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Yes nuts are good for you and fibre is also good for digestion.
I’m amazed that most people don’t understand that fibre is only found in plant foods and nuts are a good source to help keep us regular.
Fibre is that part of your food intake that isn’t digested and it is very important to relieve constipation.
Here’s a quick check on the best foods to eat daily and the amount of fibre per serve.
The MED diet is the best but Aussie men are now placed at number 2 for highest life expectancy out of 200 + countries.
But Aussie women are about 3 or 4 I think, but I’ll have to check.
Of course Aussie Women still live longer than our men.
And I know this could be a problem for a few donkeys that don’t understand the difference between female and male humans.
https://www.nutsforlife.com.au/resource/how-much-fibre-do-nuts-contain/
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BTW Aussie men are now ranked number 2 for life exp and Monaco number 1.
Aussie women are ranked 5th and W & M combined our now ranked number 3.
But CV-19 will probably play a role for the next set of numbers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-09/qld-health-life-expectancy-australia-dodges-covid19-decline/101625656
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another affect of immigration.
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Geeeezzz leafy, so what is your point?
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Blessed are the nut growers. (apol to M.Python.)
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Yes, nuts and garlic are the way to go for me. Since I started taking proprietary Horseradish and Garlic tablets every day, have not had a cold or flu, or Covid for that matter. Had the required two Covid shots to get the required tick, but no more.
Also have been snacking on almonds and mixed nuts for years, realising the health benefits, but this news about nuts and heart attacks is a new revelation for me.
Would advise anyone to get onto the Horseradish and Garlic habit, as it certainly works for me.
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Do you see the problem with your advice?
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BTW peanut butter is good for us and contains some saturated fat ( bad) but is higher in good poly and monounsaturated fats.
If you ate a wholemeal/grain slice of bread and peanut butter once or twice a day you’d be okay.
And plant foods don’t contain cholesterol, but palm oil contains very high levels of saturated fat.
Cooking with canola or olive oil is the best.
Both are good sources of the safe and healthy monounsaturated fats.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-peanut-butter-high-in-cholesterol-5203362
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Neville, Canola, or to be more precise Black Rape seed, is the worst thing for inflammation of joints, completely banned in our household. Olive oil and animal fat are the way to go
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Does this mean we can reduce deaths by heart attack while increasing anaphylactic deaths?
There’s a generation of kids avoiding nuts while at school at least. Will we see an increase in heart attacks at some point?
Pfizer will be pleased there’s another possible culprit.
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But isn’t the whole hypothesis that high LDL cholesterol in the blood being harmful now questionable? Might it be some other effect causing this outcome?
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Tough nut to crack – lots of confounding factors . Exercise and work habits , environment , stress and “medicine” spring to mind . One thing I have seen is for something to be bad for you in one study and good in another . It’s almost enough to give you a heart attack…
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I have nuts for breakfast and lunch. Usually walnuts or almonds for breakfast with fruit and yoghurt. Raw and salted peanuts for lunch. Sometimes raw or salted macadamias for lunch as well.
Aldi has the lowest cost nuts of the supermarkets. The local Sunday market has a nut store that has been the lowest cost provider of nuts for 30 years that I have been going there. Raw shelled peanuts now up to $7/kg.
I have been eating nuts since I cracked and ate my first macadamia in Queensland many decades ago. The peanuts came from Kingaroy when I was growing up. There was a local store that fried the penuts in oil then salted them that may not have been all that healthy but they were DELICIOUS.
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Bauple Nut Queensland
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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and to expand on the subject of nuts please accept the sincerest best regards from carrots, walnuts, celery and avocado to name just the first few.
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Typical.
This is likely a study sponsored by the Nut Marketing Board, despite the 2 million people and long time and at the very least reflect lifestyle changes including diet.
25% is still arguable correlation equals causation science. And the 50% increase in CO2 since 1750 causes global warming too.
And even if statistically true in the samples may relate to other effects like junk food substitution among the obese.
Nuts are not solitary animals in multi variate analysis. Not the ones I know.
I remember when George W. Bush said he didn’t like Broccoli. The Broccoli marketing board hit the roof.
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My favorite during WWII was carrots improve eye sight. The British had invented air to air radar for their night fighters in the Blitz but didn’t want the Luftwaffe to twig, so Douglas Bader toured schools with the story of carrots. And it became a fact of science, except it’s not true unless you have a real Vitamin A (beta carotene) deficiency which is rare.
Now I find the internet fact checkers dispute this story, seventy years later. People who were not born until half a century later have their own opinion.
But it was true at the time and a fact of life for a long time and part of parenting.
So I wonder whether the invention of internet ‘Fact Checking’ has improved or disrupted history?
So often it seems the job of fact checkers is simply politically sponsored reverse propaganda and more likely to be disreputable than the original story. So who fact checks the fact checkers? It’s a shady business.
I found this with CO2, that the Suess effect named informally after Prof Suess in the 1950s has been corrupted decades after his death to question and even reverse his clear conclusions. They even presume to steal his name as the new ‘Suess effect’.
So in searching the internet I am always pointed to later studies of C13 not C14 which seek to dispute his simple conclusion that Carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed in the ocean. And this original ‘Suess effect’ utterly destroys the idea of man made global warming.
It’s almost unbelievable that anyone would would pay for this to be done, but when you looks at the Nut marketing board, the milk marketing board, the red wine is good for you marketing board and of course the windmill marketing board, it becomes clearer. There are tens of trillions of dollars in Global Warming.
“The global Nuts market size was valued at $US51 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $US75 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 4.43% from 2022 to 2030″. That’s a projected very healthy growth of $US24 Billion. 50% in 8 years, $3billion a year. Nuts are very good for some.
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TdeF — there is big difference between one “Nut Marketing Board Study” (if there is even one included) and 42 studies of 2 million people in Iowa, Iran, Japan, China, Italy, and The Netherlands.
The smaller Randomzied controlled trials took place in USA, Australia, Turkey, Spain, India, Korea, China and New Zealand.
For those not familiar with the super-size dietary and health studies, there are huge long term cohort studies looking at many different dietary and lifestyle factors, not just nuts. Things like the the Harvard Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study which enrolled 52,000 doctors, dentists, podiatrist, vets, and pharmacists in 1986 and sends them questionaires every two years still, which get a 90% response rate.
Others like the Women’s Health Initiative is a cohort study which followed 94,000 women from 1991 and collected data on heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.
The Nurses Health Study started in 1976 and now includes the third generation and more than 280,000 participants.
So the results about nuts sprang out of general large studies that look at meat, grains, exercise, sleep, etc
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There arent just tens of trillions in global warming, its hundreds of trillions. Which of course, explains why it is such a problem.
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– Dr Suneel Dhand, a doctor who one can can follow on YouTube
‘Please tell anybody OVER-65 in your life: Do these 3 THINGS for BODY and BRAIN’
‘CDC Director RESIGNATION: Dr Dhand’s REACTION’
– Brownstone Institute:
‘WHO to govern the Health of the World?’
How can any organization that spouts such anti-empirical rubbish as “women, girls or other pregnant persons” be accepted as an authority on science, biology, medicine or public health?
(WHO has done fantastic work as well as mentioned in the article.
I don’t agree with how they go about the new treaty. Sweden and Florida did a good job during Covid, is taking another route than still possible?)
– BBC (as mentioned before)
The BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, announced the launch of a new “disinformation” unit in its newsroom to combat claimed conspiracy theories and fake news.
-‘The Free Press’: ‘US Public Health Agencies aren’t ‘Following the Science’ Officials Say’ 14-07-2022
“People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.” by Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H.. and Tracy Beth, MD, Ph
The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers.
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It’s weird really. People of my age think ‘heart problems’ are what we grew up with, just the simple wording ….. ‘heart attack’.
And now these days, with the number of ‘conditions’ gradually creeping up and up, we find that there are actually a large number of conditions associated with ….. ‘the heart!!’
That was sheeted home to me in December of 2018 when I fainted during my morning 6KM walk. I had gradually got back to my eight minutes per kilometre mark, and blink, I just dropped like a stone.
I was helped by two motorists passing by, but almost as soon as I hit the ground, I came to again, and thought nothing of it really, and one of them drove me home. Later that morning, I visited a local practice, as my own GP couldn’t fit me in. They gave me all the tests and patched up my hand which I had injured. Three days later, the GP I saw noticed an anomaly with the ECG, and made an appointment with a Heart Specialist.
Blah blah blah, Syncope and BradyCardia, and the fitment of a Pacemaker, and I went straight from that appointment to GCUH for that Pacemaker fitment, not even time to go home and pack. The Ambo lent me her phone so I could contact Barbara, but that was all I got, and I was more worried about her than I was about me.
Now, I’m pretty much @n@l when it comes to knowing about what goes on, so I wanted it explained to me, and the Heart Specialist, using that ECG, explained exactly what was going on that required the procedure, and then I was given literature at the Hospital, while waiting, and later on, a complete explanation from ‘the team’ who carried out the procedure.
I have a full explanation at this link to my Post on that subject at my home site, so that explains the whole process of what happened.
However, the point here is this.
After that initial phone call to Barbara, and no matter how much I downplayed it, I just knew she would panic, but there was nothing I could do from the inside of an ambulance. When I was finally settled into a room at GCUH, I fielded calls from our Son, Daughter, and my Sister in Canberra, and I finally got to actually have a conversation with Barbara to reassure her. The word had got out that I had ….. a heart attack, and was needing Triple Bypass surgery. Okay, that gets back to what I said right at the top here, about how people our age are only locked into one thing when it comes to the heart.
What surprised me most about the ‘whole thing’ was that there actually is a small electric current generated naturally by the heart itself to aid in the sequence of the opening of the heart valves. Oh, the other ‘surprise’ was being conscious during the procedure, talking to the technician, and watching the procedure on a monitor as it happened, and then, afterwards, watching the live video feed of the operation of the Implant with the wires and the heart valves opening and closing in sequence. I was discharged to go home just 18 hours after being wheeled in for the procedure. There are yearly checkups, where they download all the information from the previous year from the ‘Device’ to their computer. I have had the device now for four and a half years, and I have almost seven years of life left in the battery, and it’s still only operating at less than 40%, instantaneously detecting when that electrical current needs to be sent by the device rather than the heart itself. The technician said that they actually have people whose devices operate at 100% on both sides of the heart.
Tony.
GCUH – Gold Coast University Hospital.
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I have a large handful (150g) of peanuts & cashews every single day and add peanut butter to beef & chicken stirfries.
I love peanut butter, just like Bear Grylls. 😁
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What design barbecue do you use for Bear Grylls?
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A Big One………………
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Thank you so much for that Article Jo and I will now eat more nuts. I do eat them infrequently, but now I will eat them on a regular basis. Unsalted ones as well instead of salted.
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Ah, interesting. But as some forget, we are omnivores. Vegitive matter fills us, when meat is short. I have seen studies like this before, and it begs the question, how? And why? What part of the nut or seed is the primary source of the benefit. I have not read a paper on that yet. Or is one type of seed or nut better? Such as, are we eating the right product?
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Did the researchers allow for the fact that many older people cannot eat
nuts because of fragile and vulnerable teeth ?
I am 75 years old and in that group .
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No Hugh, they may not have, though I guess there might be the nut paste option? I know that’s not always easy either. It is possible to add nuts to blenders to make smoothies and soups…
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For 20 yrs we have had a small snack bowl on the kitchen counter with mostly pumpkin seeds and almonds, and sometimes additional cashews and walnuts. Add a few drops of olive oil and salt to taste. I often eat only these until early evening, chewing them seems to be very satisfying. Certainly helps control weight.
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From an evolutionary perspective, the idea that highly seasonal plant foods are generally a “staple” is questionable.
If we accept the argument that our ancestors were nomadic hunter-gatherers, then we also have to accept that their ability to store and transport sufficient quantities to make them a significant part of the diet year-round is very limited.
They did not have our sealed storage technology, our ability to chemically combat insect and rodent pests and our ability to easily transport considerable mass. The observation that there were some forms of preservation should not be unreasonably extrapolated to argue that it was done in large quantities and year-round.
Moderns tend to forget how many other creatures like to eat nuts (and many of the other things that we like to eat. Particularly insects. Weevils in bread and flour were a common pest to settlers through the 19th century. Good luck arguing that nomads carried kilos of nuts with them in sealed clay jars (the only commonly-suitable technology) , on foot across the steppes. A more typical scenario is that of the aboriginal bunya-nut harvest in Qld. The short-term abundance of these nuts was used to support a temporary tribal gathering, in which marriages were arranged and ceremonies conducted… before the tribe(s) dispersed to continue their normal hunting.
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PEterW, just because humans could survive winter living off stored and dried foods and the odd fresh meat does not mean that diet is “the best” 100% of the time. The damage done in winter to capillaries, nerves and lymphocytes could be repaired each spring…
We may be better off eating a seasonal diet, cycling through different food groups.
Fasting is also beneficial in short bursts, but the 100% approach never seems to work out well.
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“Healthy user bias”….
That would be the observation that most people snack, and that people who snack on “wholefoods” are less likely to snack on highly-manufactured foods containing high levels of sugar, starch and hydrogenated vegetable oils.
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I’d also like to hear some justification for the claim that a high-meat/carnivore diet is “risky”.
Is it based on anything other than the assumption that humans are “omnivores”, which appears to be based on habit more than sound research.
We know that there are a number of people-groups who only ate plant-foods with considerable reluctance, and the historical (pre-access to refined starches ) suggest that they were in robust good health. Nor are they confined to the high-Actic, either.
We also see an increasing number of people in the carnivore community enjoying increased levels of good health….. including an interesting number of ex-vegans who had experienced major health declines while avoiding animal products, and recovered once they switched eating patterns.
Call it “anecdotal” all you like, but we’re never going to get long-term RCTs because we can’t lock people up and control all factors other than diet, for the rest of their lives.
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PeterW, I’m surprised — after all these years — that you think I would be so uninformed and illogical as to suggest anything for mere crass “assumption”?
My suggestion comes from studying biochemistry and 30 years of reading research on components of plants like phytosterols, bioflavanoids (quercetin, rutin, hesperidin), other polyphenols (flavones, isoflavones, flavanols, anthocyanadins, etc), biogenic amines, carotenoids, bioactive peptides, enzymes and fibre.
Given our genetic and evolutionary heritage it is a mere banal observation that any artificially restricted diet is risky. Are you eating fresh meat, whole animals (nose to tail, including kidneys, heart, livers and broth), did the meat you eat come from artificially fertilized farms or was it wild game meat? Not many humans evolved on a diet of refrigerated mass farm meat fed with corn.
EG: “Flavonoids have been shown to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, antibacterial and antiviral efficacy. Therefore, in this study, we choose 85 flavonoid compounds and screened them to determine their in-silico interaction with protein targets crucial for SARS-CoV-2 infection.” — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34020130/
EG “These natural antioxidants, in particular carotenoids and polyphenols, possess a wide variety of biological attributes, such as anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-microbial, and anti-cancer properties…” — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068854/
Would your 100% meat diet (which is probably not fresh organic game meat) be healthier with 2% leafy greens, citrus peel, garlic, ginger, onion, and cocoa nibs?
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