The Hemp Connection:
Brazil nuts

When you're dealing with something as chronic and serious as PCOS, you can get focused on what is the perfect food, the perfect meal, the perfect diet…and if it's not perfect…don't bother.

That, in the end, may be your perfect downfall.

Consider two studies, both done with nuts.

In the first one, subjects were divided into two groups. One was, in addition to their regular diet, given only 31 grams' fat worth of walnuts, the other, a similar volume of almonds.

Walnuts decreased low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, almonds did, but not to the same degree.
Walnuts increased insulin response during OGTT by 26% (P < 0.02).

Walnuts decreased hemoglobin A1c, almonds did not.

Walnuts increased sex hormone-binding globulin
Almonds reduced free androgen index

Betcha thought till I got to that last part that I was going to nix almonds, didntcha? Nope.

The message here is not that almonds are bad and walnuts are good, but rather that walnuts and almonds both have benefit to your health, but in different ways. In fact, the name of this study is Differential effects of walnuts vs almonds on improving metabolic and endocrine parameters in PCOS, NOT Exclusively superior effect of walnuts compared to almonds on metabolic parameters in PCOS.

Let's look at a second study, using people with metabolic syndrome.

Fifty subjects were given 30 g/day of raw nuts (15 g walnuts, 7.5 g almonds and 7.5 g hazelnuts), or no nuts. Compared to the first study, I profiled, where no weight change occurred, in this study, there was a moderate weight loss experienced in the half of the group eating mixed nuts. LDL cholesterol decreased, as did fasting insulin and insulin resistance.

So just because when all you're eating is almonds and almonds don't improve insulin function the way walnuts do, it doesn't mean that you can't eat almonds. If you eat the two together, you can get the benefit of both. No single nut will give you a perfect hormone profile, but every single nut on the tree stands to benefit you in one way or another.

So stop paralyzing yourself out of eating foods you enjoy because they're not absolutely stand alone perfect…and mix it up a bit…literally!

Kalgaonkar S, Almario RU, Gurusinghe D, Garamendi EM, Buchan W, Kim K, Karakas SE. Differential effects of walnuts vs almonds on improving metabolic and endocrine parameters in PCOS. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2011 Mar;65(3):386-93. Epub 2010 Dec 15

Casas-Agustench P, López-Uriarte P, Bulló M, Ros E, Cabré-Vila JJ, Salas-Salvadó J. Effects of one serving of mixed nuts on serum lipids, insulin resistance and inflammatory markers in patients with the metabolic syndrome. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2011 Feb;21(2):126-35. Epub 2009 Dec 22.

Way back in the early 80's when I was a brand-new dietitian, we were taught to teach our clients to avoid nuts because of their high fat content. Today, nuts are the new health food. But research is often written up in ways that place a specific nut in the spotlight, without a big-picture perspective.

For example: Walnuts are routinely listed as"the" nut to eat because of their high omega-3 content. Most people do not realize that the omega-6 content of walnuts is so high that it is mathematically impossible to improve your dietary omega-6 to omega-3 ratio by eating only walnuts and no other nuts. Does that mean you shouldn't eat walnuts? Absolutely not! In all honesty, it is mathematically impossible to improve your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio with any nut. It is, however, yet another example of the imbalances we create when we focus on a handful of"super foods" and don't pursue variety.

Being the statistics nerd that I am, I spent the other afternoon looking at 10 different nuts in several different ways. I came to some interesting conclusions. Let me work you through what I did. I don't mean to be tedious, I just want to be transparent so anyone else can work through the analysis just as I did. If you're just looking for what nuts are best to eat,simply skip to the bottom of this post.

1. Analysis one: Best anti-inflammatory index (potential for a food to prevent or promote inflammation, as indexed at http://www.nutritiondata.com/), ranked in order of best to worst:
macadamia hazelnut almond cashew peanut pistachio Brazil pecan walnut pine
2. Analysis two: Omega-3 fatty acid content, ranked from highest to lowest per ounce of nuts: walnut pecan pine pistachio macadamia cashew hazelnut Brazil peanut almond Important point of interest: almonds are the only nut that contain absolutely NO omega-3 fatty acids.
3. Analysis 3: Omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest (least beneficial) walnut macadamia Brazil pecan cashew pistachio hazelnut pine peanut almond
4. Analysis 4: Total omega-3 and monounsaturated fat content, ranked from highest (most beneficial) to lowest macadamia hazelnut pecan almond cashew brazil peanut pistachio pine walnut
5. Analysis 5: Total saturated fat content, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest walnut almond hazelnut pine pistachio pecan peanut cashew macadamia Brazil
SUMMARY ANALYSIS: In each list, I placed a number"1" next to the top item, and numbered each nut below it in numerical order. Then I added up the scores for each nut based on their rank in each category. The lowest score shows the overall rank. This helps nuts that many not have one outstanding quality still receive a decent ranking--it gets credit, in other words, for being all-around pretty good without being written off for having one quality that is considered"bad" striking it off as"unhealthy". It also keeps a nut with one outstanding quality for getting too much credit when there may be nutritional aspects that truly keep it from being a superfood.
The final rankings, with the most potentially beneficial at the top: macadamia hazelnut walnut pecan cashew almond/pistachio (tied) Brazil/pine (tied) peanut
I guess you could say…just like people, all nuts have their good and not-so-great qualities. By spending too much time with one, you'll miss out on the benefits of the others. Diversify your interests, and you'll get the best benefit.