At One Time, Tree Nut Consumption Not Recommended by Doctors

Do you remember when consuming nuts was not good for you? The medical industry had it all wrong!

“It was a journey that took about 20 years. And we started down it, not really knowing, like most research how it is going to turn out,” noted Richard Waycott President and CEO of the Almond Board of California.  “Fortunately, the focus both for walnuts and almonds was on cholesterol and heart health, and we were able to have redundant trials, clinical trials, published in the papers that revealed that, yes, indeed increasing almond consumption does help with cholesterol,” he said.

And that it reduced the bad cholesterol and increased the good cholesterol.

“That was our first stake in the ground, and we’ve built on that,” noted Waycott.

Investing in good health research, is a major priority with the Almond Board. “Clinical trials are not cheap. They cost upwards of $3 million a year, and they usually take multiple years to accomplish and then you got to get published. That’s definitely a foundation of the Almond Board’s work,” said Waycott.

And in further evidence, according to the largest study of its kind, people who ate a daily handful of nuts were 20% less likely to die from any cause over a 30-year period, than those who didn’t consume nuts.