The one nut dietitians recommend for brain, heart, and gut health

 So your incompetent? doctor didn't recommend this over a decade ago? That's a massive amount of incompetence for your board of directors to ignore!

walnuts(18 posts to October 2014)

The one nut dietitians recommend for brain, heart, and gut health

Key Takeaways

• Walnuts stand out among nuts because they pack omega-3s along with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds that support overall wellness.
• Eating walnuts regularly can help support brain and heart health by protecting cells, aiding focus and healthy aging, and helping maintain cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood vessel function.
• Walnuts are easy to work into meals and snacks, and storing them in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer helps keep them fresh longer.

On the whole, nuts (and seeds) are considered to be a super healthy food category thanks to the array of nutrients they provide. While the nutrition of most nuts and seeds is somewhat similar, each has a slightly different profile—and, as a result, offers slightly different health benefits.

For example, some nuts are better suited to supporting certain body systems than others. And according to three registered dietitians, one stands out as the ultimate option for supporting brain, heart, and gut health—and that’s walnuts! Read on to learn why.

Meet Our Expert

• Sarah Alsing, MS, RD, a registered dietitian and owner of Delightfully Fueled
• Lindsey Joe, RDN, a registered dietitian and creator of The Meal Planning Method
• Sam Schleiger, MS, RDN, CD, CLT, IFNCP, registered dietitian and owner of Simply Nourished Functional Nutrition

What Makes Walnuts Good for You? 

When it comes to nutrition, walnuts have so much to offer.

One of the most noteworthy attributes of these nuts is that they’re an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids. “In fact, walnuts contain the most omega-3 fatty acids of any tree nut, including pecans, pistachios, and macadamia nuts,” explains Lindsey Joe, RDN, registered dietitian and creator of The Meal Planning Method.But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, you can also find meaningful amounts of fiber, magnesium, manganese, copper, phosphorus, zinc, vitamin B6, vitamin E, and folate in these nuts. “Walnuts also contain a bountiful amount of antioxidants and polyphenols, including ellagic acid, catechins, melatonin, and flavonoids,” adds Sam Schleiger, MS, RDN, CD, CLT, IFNCP, registered dietitian and owner of Simply Nourished Functional Nutrition.

These nutrients support several body systems. However, here we'll focus on how walnuts specifically benefit brain, heart, and gut health.

Brain Health

“It’s no coincidence that walnuts resemble the shape of a brain,” says Schleiger—and this resemblance is especially fitting when you consider the many ways this nut supports one of our body’s most important organs.

“The omega-3 fats and antioxidants in walnuts help protect brain cells and support cognitive function as we age,” adds Sarah Alsing, MS, RD registered dietitian and owner of Delightfully Fueled. But the brain health benefits of both of these nutrients goes even deeper. “Omega-3 fatty acids support communication between brain cells, memory and learning, and balanced inflammatory response within the nervous system. Meanwhile, polyphenols and other antioxidant compounds in walnuts can help neutralize free radicals, protect brain cells from oxidative damage, support healthy aging, and promote long-term cognitive resilience,” explains Schleiger.

Otherwise, magnesium, manganese, B vitamins, copper, and even slow-digesting fiber all encourage brain health in one way or another—whether that be by supporting neurotransmitter health, sleep quality, focus, concentration, blood sugar stabilization, mood, or overall nervous system health.

“While no single food can guarantee better brain health, research suggests that regularly including walnuts as part of an overall healthy eating pattern may help support your cognitive function (from focus and concentration to learning and information processing) and healthy aging,” Joe summarizes.

Heart Health

The omega-3 fatty acids in walnuts also support heart health. “Many people hear the word ‘fat’ and automatically assume it's bad for their heart, but the omega-3 fatty acids in walnuts can help support healthy blood vessels, healthy cholesterol levels, and a healthy inflammatory response,” explains Joe.

Meanwhile, the fiber in walnuts can actually bind to dietary cholesterol in the small intestine, helping to remove it from the body instead of being absorbed into the blood stream—another win for cardiovascular health. “Walnuts also provide antioxidants that help protect cells against oxidative stress, a process that can contribute to the development of heart disease,” adds Alsing. 

And that’s not all when it comes to the heart health benefits of walnuts! “Magnesium plays a critical role in cardiovascular function by helping support healthy blood vessel relaxation, promote healthy blood pressure regulation, and support normal heart rhythm. Plus, copper and manganese help support healthy blood vessel structure and cellular protection from oxidative stress,” shares Schleiger.

The American Heart Association even backs walnuts as a heart-healthy food, shown in research to reduce heart disease risk.

Gut Health

The fiber content of walnuts also bodes well for gut health. “The fiber in walnuts helps nourish good gut bacteria and promote a healthier, more diverse gut microbiome,” shares Alsing. This complex carbohydrate also promotes digestive regularity.

The polyphenol content of these nuts bodes well for the gut, too. “These nutrients act as food for beneficial gut bacteria, helping them thrive and produce compounds that may support your digestive and overall health,” explains Joe.

And the omega-3’s in walnuts are even impactful for gut health (what can’t they do?!). “Omega-3 fats may help support healthy intestinal barrier function, a balanced inflammatory response, and communication between the gut and immune system. Since much of the immune system resides within the gut, maintaining the integrity of the gut lining is an important component of overall health,” Schleiger says.

Enjoying Walnuts at Home

It’s just an added bonus that walnuts are also incredibly delicious and easy to add to both sweet and savory recipes at home. 

“I blend walnuts with dates and roll them into balls for a simple sweet treat, mix walnuts with dried fruit for a healthy snack, or add chopped walnuts to my Greek yogurt bowls for a crunch,” shares Alsing. 

Meanwhile, Schleiger adds them to pesto, apple nachos, stuffed dates, parfaits, salads, and grain bowls. “And as a Chinese American, we love making a healthier at home version of Honey Walnut Chicken,” offers Joe.

Once you have your walnuts home, however, properly storing them is key to preventing rancidity and lengthening the shelf-life. “I like to remind people how to properly store walnuts to ensure no nut goes to waste! Simply place them in the refrigerator or freezer, not the pantry, in an airtight container to maintain freshness,” explains Joe.

Read the original article on Real Simple

14 Foods That Protect Gut Health and Slow Biological Aging by Super Age

 Will your competent? doctor get the dietician to evaluate all the hospital meals for compliance? NO?  Which means your whole hospital is incompetent and needs to be reconstituted! 

14 Foods That Protect Gut Health and Slow Biological Aging

Wild Blueberries May Promote Heart and Gut Health, New Review Shows

 I highly doubt you'll ever find wild blueberries, they are incredibly small, hard to pick and I've never seen them in any store. 

Wild Blueberries May Promote Heart and Gut Health, New Review Shows

Study links gut health and brain function in resilient individuals

  So ask your competent? doctor  to test for and how to get good gut health. You'll need the resilience since your doctor knows fucking nothing about getting you 100% recovered and you'll have to search on your own for that.

Study links gut health and brain function in resilient individuals

  Reviewed

University of California - Los Angeles Health SciencesJun 21 2024

A new UCLA Health study has found that resilient people exhibit neural activity in the brain regions associated with improved cognition and regulating of emotions, and were more mindful and better at describing their feelings. The same group also exhibited gut microbiome activity linked to a healthy gut, with reduced inflammation and gut barrier.

For the study, rather than examine microbiome activity and composition linked to disease conditions-- like anxiety and depression -- the researchers wanted to flip the script and study the gut microbiome and brain in healthy, resilient people who effectively cope with different types of stress, including discrimination and social isolation.

If we can identify what a healthy resilient brain and microbiome look like, then we can develop targeted interventions to those areas to reduce stress."

Arpana Gupta, PhD, senior author and co-director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center

This is believed to be the first study to explore the intersection of resiliency, the brain, and the gut microbiome.

Gupta and her team focused on methods to cope with stress because research has shown that untreated stress can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes. While stress is an inevitable part of life, studying how to handle stress can help prevent developing diseases. 

To conduct the study, published in Nature Mental Health, the researchers surveyed 116 people about their resiliency – like trust in one's instincts and positive acceptance of change -- and separated them into two groups. One group ranked high on the resiliency scale and the other group ranked low. The participants also underwent MRI imaging and gave stool samples two or three days before their scans. 

The researchers found that people in the high resiliency group were less anxious and depressed, less prone to judge, and had activity in regions of the brain associated with emotional regulation and better cognition compared to the group with low resiliency. "When a stressor happens, often we go to this aroused fight or flight response, and this impairs the breaks in your brain," Gupta said. "But the highly resilient individuals in the study were found to be better at regulating their emotions, less likely to catastrophize, and keep a level head," added Desiree Delgadillo, postdoctoral researcher and one of the first authors. 

The high resiliency group also had different microbiome activity than the low resiliency group. Namely, the high resiliency group's microbiomes excreted metabolites and exhibited gene activity associated with low inflammation and a strong and healthy gut barrier. A weak gut barrier, otherwise known as a leaky gut, is caused by inflammation and impairs the gut barrier's ability to absorb essential nutrients needed by the body while blocking toxins from entering the gut. 

The researchers were surprised to find these microbiome signatures associated with the high resiliency group. 

"Resilience truly is a whole-body phenomenon that not only affects your brain but also your microbiome and what metabolites that it is producing," Gupta said. "We have this whole community of microbes in our gut that exudes these therapeutic properties and biochemicals, so I'm looking forward to building upon this research," Delgadillo said. 

The team's future research will study whether an intervention to increase resilience will change brain and gut microbiome activity. "We could have treatments that target both the brain and the gut that can maybe one day prevent disease," Gupta said. 

A new UCLA Health study has found that resilient people exhibit neural activity in the brain regions associated with improved cognition and regulating of emotions, and were more mindful and better at describing their feelings. The same group also exhibited gut microbiome activity linked to a healthy gut, with reduced inflammation and gut barrier.

For the study, rather than examine microbiome activity and composition linked to disease conditions-- like anxiety and depression -- the researchers wanted to flip the script and study the gut microbiome and brain in healthy, resilient people who effectively cope with different types of stress, including discrimination and social isolation.

"If we can identify what a healthy resilient brain and microbiome look like, then we can develop targeted interventions to those areas to reduce stress," said Arpana Gupta, PhD, senior author and co-director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center. This is believed to be the first study to explore the intersection of resiliency, the brain, and the gut microbiome.

Gupta and her team focused on methods to cope with stress because research has shown that untreated stress can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes. While stress is an inevitable part of life, studying how to handle stress can help prevent developing diseases. 

To conduct the study, published in Nature Mental Health, the researchers surveyed 116 people about their resiliency – like trust in one's instincts and positive acceptance of change -- and separated them into two groups. One group ranked high on the resiliency scale and the other group ranked low. The participants also underwent MRI imaging and gave stool samples two or three days before their scans. 

The researchers found that people in the high resiliency group were less anxious and depressed, less prone to judge, and had activity in regions of the brain associated with emotional regulation and better cognition compared to the group with low resiliency. "When a stressor happens, often we go to this aroused fight or flight response, and this impairs the breaks in your brain," Gupta said. "But the highly resilient individuals in the study were found to be better at regulating their emotions, less likely to catastrophize, and keep a level head," added Desiree Delgadillo, postdoctoral researcher and one of the first authors. 

The high resiliency group also had different microbiome activity than the low resiliency group. Namely, the high resiliency group's microbiomes excreted metabolites and exhibited gene activity associated with low inflammation and a strong and healthy gut barrier. A weak gut barrier, otherwise known as a leaky gut, is caused by inflammation and impairs the gut barrier's ability to absorb essential nutrients needed by the body while blocking toxins from entering the gut. 

The researchers were surprised to find these microbiome signatures associated with the high resiliency group. 

"Resilience truly is a whole-body phenomenon that not only affects your brain but also your microbiome and what metabolites that it is producing," Gupta said. "We have this whole community of microbes in our gut that exudes these therapeutic properties and biochemicals, so I'm looking forward to building upon this research," Delgadillo said. 

The team's future research will study whether an intervention to increase resilience will change brain and gut microbiome activity. "We could have treatments that target both the brain and the gut that can maybe one day prevent disease," Gupta said. 

Source:

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

Journal reference:

An, E., et al. (2024). Stress-resilience impacts psychological wellbeing as evidenced by brain–gut microbiome interactions. Nature Mental Health. doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00266-6.

Q&A: Not just a ‘sweet treat,’ dark chocolate packed with benefits for a healthy gut

Ask your doctor when moderate will be EXACTLY defined. As is this is useless.

Q&A: Not just a ‘sweet treat,’ dark chocolate packed with benefits for a healthy gut

Good news for chocolate lovers: In moderation, dark chocolate boasts numerous health benefits from flavanols, antioxidants and fiber, all of which aid in promoting gut wellness.

“It has some unique properties to it,” Sunny Jain, MS, CEO and founder of Floré by Sun Genomics, said. “We always thought that chocolate was a simple treat, but dark chocolate and its fiber content can be a great prebiotic source for bacteria that feed on those types of fiber.”

Dark chocolate has strong benefits from favanols, antioxidants and fiber and it has polyphenols that provide heart health benefits. Source: Adobe Stock

In an interview with Healio, Jain spoke about the benefits of dark chocolate and its impact on gut health.

Sunny Jain

Healio: What are some of the health benefits of dark chocolate?

Jain: Dark chocolate has a lot of strong benefits from flavanols, antioxidants and fiber. You can get antioxidant benefit from supplements or you can get it from your foods — and this is one way to get it through your foods. Antioxidants are the molecules that help quench reactive oxygen species, and things that are causing damage to your cells or proliferating your cells are causing these inflammatory cascades and cytokine storms. Antioxidants can be a helpful way to balance those things out.

Dark chocolate also has polyphenols from cocoa beans, which can provide heart health benefits. Polyphenols also increase the concentration of Roseburia — a group of organisms in the gut — that provide that antioxidant benefit. You’re actually feeding the organisms of the gut that are going to provide you an antioxidant benefit.

One way to think about keeping your gut healthy is going for the healthier option. People now recognize dark chocolate as a healthier option than some of the ways we used to consume chocolate, which were probably higher in sugar content. And separating it from milk chocolate, which might have more saturated fat from milk.

Healio: How much dark chocolate is recommended?

Jain: We definitely don’t want to take ourselves to the tummy-ache limit. Everything in moderation can be good, and when you have these polyphenols and flavanol benefits then a reasonable serving or a couple servings in a day is going to be OK.

There are specific organisms of the gut that we believe things like dark chocolate can trigger, especially when you’re consuming foods that have polyphenols, like berries. When you’re looking for a sweet treat, instead of reaching for cake, perhaps reach for a dark chocolate-covered fruit. A dark chocolate-covered berry would be a much better option in the better-for-you category, because it has that polyphenol benefit.

As long as it matches the rest of your nutritional distribution: You have to make sure you’re eating other healthy things, like diverse prebiotic fibers from vegetables and low-saturated and good unsaturated fat foods and nuts and legumes. Mix it in, and dark chocolate is a reasonable way to get a treat for the day.