Diet is surrounded by myths, especially those related to weight gain or loss, and many of them have no scientific basis . One of them, for example, points to nuts.
As has traditionally been the case with carbohydrates, there has often been a tendency to recommend avoiding the intake of this type of food to those who wanted to lose weight, often citing its high energy value and its high content of certain types of fats. Instead, now, a review published by researchers from the University of Toronto and Rovira y Virgili University in the specialized medium Obesity Reviews , shows the incorrectness of this belief.
‘Good’ fats
In fact, the authors have found that the daily consumption of certain amounts of these nuts (between 30 and 45 grams per day) is, in fact, related to a decrease in adiposity (proportion of fat; high adiposity is a characteristic typical of obesity) in people.
This suggests that the consumption of nuts could, contrary to popular belief, protect against increases in adiposity , something that makes sense if we take into account the compositions of these foods.
The main thing, they point out, is that most of the fats they contain are unsaturated fatty acids (so-called good fats), which the body processes better than other types of fats and more efficiently fulfill the thermogenic function of lipids in the body. , leading the body to accumulate less amount of lipids in total. These fats are also less bioavailable to the body (it is more difficult to extract them) due to the physical structure of nuts (since they are contained by cell walls), which leads to less absorption than their composition might suggest. .
On the other hand, and although it is true that nuts represent a high caloric intake , they have several properties that increase the feeling of satiety (high fiber and protein content and longer chewing), leading to a lower intake than what would be given with other types of food.
Recommended for diabetes and cardiovascular health
The cited work, as we said, is a review, which implies that all this information is not new for the scientific community. In fact, nuts were already listed by many common dietary guidelines in clinical practice to improve cardiovascular health and for ailments such as diabetes.
And it is that, in addition to the known benefits of unsaturated fatty acids (which, for example, reduce the accumulation of ‘bad’ cholesterol in the arterial walls), nuts contain important antioxidant substances with very beneficial effects for health.
Of course, as always, the consumption of nuts (remember that the recommended amounts range between 30 and 45 grams per day, well above the average in developed countries) should be framed within a balanced diet and a lifestyle healthy.
Likewise, the adoption of nutritional habits aimed exclusively at weight loss should be done only in those cases in which there is overweight or obesity that pose a danger to health (something that a doctor must evaluate) and never for purely aesthetic reasons , since this practice can in itself lead to health problems. Along these lines, changes in diet should be directed and supervised by a doctor.
