This is old news, but new to me, and maybe to you.

http://blogs.webmd.com/heart-disease/

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Mediterranean Diet - It's Nuts!

Metabolic syndrome is a group of risk factors, including high blood
pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol levels, and fat in the
midsection that increase one's risk of heart disease and diabetes. Diet,
exercise, and medications have been shown to improve metabolic syndrome
and lower the risk of these complications.

Currently a study called Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMEDD)
has enrolled 9000 high-risk participants aged 55 to 80 years who are
assigned to one of three interventions: Mediterranean diet with the
provision of 1 L/week of virgin olive oil, Mediterranean diet with 30
g/day of mixed nuts, or a low-fat diet. This is a long-term,
multi-center, randomized controlled clinical trial is designed to assess
the effects of the Mediterranean diet on the primary prevention of
cardiovascular disease. (Primary prevention means the prevention of a
disease that the person has never had before. Compare this to secondary
prevention which means preventing a person who is known to have high
cholesterol and blockages in the arteries from having a heart attack).

Already data from 1224 participants in the study have shown that
adhering to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with mixed nuts appears to
provide benefit to individuals with the metabolic syndrome.
Investigators observed a reduced prevalence of metabolic syndrome at one
year among individuals adhering to the Mediterranean diet plus mixed
nuts compared with those adhering to the traditional Mediterranean diet
alone.

"The novelty of our findings is that a positive effect on metabolic
syndrome was achieved by diet alone, in the absence of weight loss or
increased energy expenditure," wrote lead investigator Dr Jordi
Salas-Salvadó (University of Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain) and
colleagues in the December 8/22, 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal
Medicine. At the beginning of this study, nearly 62% of the participants
met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. After one year the rate of
metabolic syndrome dropped by nearly 13.7% in the patients assigned to
the Mediterranean diet plus mixed nuts, 6.7% in those consuming a
Mediterranean diet alone, and only 2% among those on the traditional
low-fat diet. (Is there anyone left out there who still thinks the
ill-advised, poorly researched, low-fat diet benefited anyone but the
companies making carbohydrate-rich junk foods?)

The beneficial effects of the diet happened without an increase in
exercise habits, calories burned, or weight loss and add to the evidence
that diets enriched with nuts do not induce weight gain, noted the
authors. This author does note however that the amount of nuts was
limited to 30 grams a day, which is one ounce or about 2 tablespoons).
The researchers aren't sure yet what caused the improvement, but think
that the diet plus mixed-nuts intervention may have positive effects on
insulin resistance. Another possibility is the diet's effects on other
factors such as oxidative stress and its related inflammation in the
blood vessels. Previous analysis of the data have shown that the
Mediterranean diet coupled with nuts protects against oxidative damage
and reduces cardiovascular risk factors better than a low-fat diet.

Source: Salas-Salvadó J, Fernández-Ballart J, Ros E, et al. Effect of a
Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts on metabolic syndrome status.
Arch Intern Med 2008; 168: 2449-2458.