Eat your way to a healthy heart with pistachios

Added 22.11.2010

Pistachios improve your cholesterol profile

A decade ago pistachios, like most other nuts, were considered to be unhealthy and a sure path to weight gain. Since then, many scientific studies have been finding quite the opposite is true.

A few years ago a study found that incorporating pistachios into the daily diet improves the cholesterol profile. What did they find?

• Total cholesterol is lowered by 12%.
• HDL (good) cholesterol is increased by 26%.
• The ratio of total cholesterol to HDL is lowered by 21%. FYI, this ratio is the most important for determining heart disease risk.

Best of all, none of the study participants who ate pistachios every day gained weight!

Pistachios increase the amount of antioxidants in your blood

Eating pistachios every day helps to lower cholesterol and protect your arteries and heart and this is largely due to the fact that they increase antioxidant levels in your bloodstream. Low levels of antioxidants in your blood leads to oxidative stress and inflammation, a key factor in heart disease and many other degenerative diseases. LDL (bad) cholesterol is really only bad when it becomes oxidised causing plaque build-up in blood vessels.

The antioxidants present in pistachios such as lutein, zeaxanthin, beta-carotene and vitamin E help neutralise the damaging effects of oxidation and help protect our heart and cells. Pistachios are also good sources of copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, thiamine, vitamins B1 and B6 and arginine.

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