Lower Cholesterol Naturally- With Pistachios?

There’s some great research I’d like to share with you on how to lower cholesterol naturally in a way that you probably haven’t thought of before.  Even better, this quirky and interesting research comes from my alma mater, Penn State University.  How did they do it?  Pistachios.

That’s right, it’s more than just an ice cream flavor, my friends.  Turns out, pistachios are a surprisingly potent health food with a broad range of effects.  For purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on the effects of these nuts on lowering LDL levels, usually referred to as the “bad” cholesterol.

LDL Cholesterol

As a quick review, when you get your blood cholesterol levels checked, the main variables of interest are High Density Lipoproteins (HDL), Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL), and triglycerides (no acronym for that one).  They’re called “high” or “low” density based on the amount of protein in them.

The HDL or high-density type is called “good” because that’s the kind that can actually scoop up chunks of cholesterol from the arteries and transport it away.  Nice, right?  So this stuff cleans up the arteries.

LDL cholesterol is pretty much the opposite.  This is the stuff that actually lodges in the arteries (the reasons and mechanisms behind this are the basis of a HUGE number of arguments and many nerdy-type people getting hot under the collar) and causes all kinds of problems… such as dropping over dead from a coronary, for instance.

For that reason, while we look at overall cholesterol levels, even more important is how much of the “good” cholesterol do you have versus the “bad” (LDL) stuff.  Obviously, if you have tons of the HDL cholesterol clearing the junk out of your arteries, and not a lot of the LDL cholesterol gunking the tubes up, that’s a good thing.

Pistachios Lower Cholesterol Naturally

So here’s what these researchers did.  Why they thought to pick out pistachios, I’ll never know, but they started off with a bunch of volunteers who ate the typical horrible American diet, with tons of fat and especially saturated fat.  Then, they switched these folks over to one of three groups:  just a healthy diet (they used one called a “Step One” diet to keep it consistent), that Step One diet plus some pistachios (about 10% of total calories), and the last group, which was the same Step One diet but lots of pistachios (about 20% of calories).

Here’s what they found.  The intake of pistachios increased the effect of the healthy diet on lowering LDL cholesterol in a dose dependent manner.  So the people eating some pistachios (the 10% group) had about a 9% additional decrease in LDL from their non-pistachio eating counterparts, while the heavy-hitter pistachio eaters (the 20% of total calories group) saw a 12% additional decrease from the pistachio-less group.

Pretty cool,  hunh?  What’s even more interesting is, the effects were far greater (seven times greater!) in lowering cholesterol naturally than could be expected by just the lipid profile of the nuts alone… in other words, we knew these nuts had healthy fats in them, and that should lower cholesterol, but not THIS much.  So what the heck is going on with pistachios?

The Inflammation Connection

Consistent readers of this site probably aren’t surprised to see the word “inflammation” popping up.  Chronic, systemic inflammation is the mechanism behind all kinds of diseases, and has been linked to cardiovascular disease big time.

So I wasn’t too surprised when I came across another study about pistachios, also out of Penn State, on a website that something to do with the Western Pistaschio Association.  What did surprise me was, there is a Western Pistachio Association.

Anyway, this study showed that pistachio consumption ALSO reduced the signs of inflammation on a cellular level.  The researchers were able to suggest a link between this lowered inflammation and the seemingly strange ability of pistachios to lower cholesterol naturally.

Consider adding an occasional handful of pistachios into your diet to give your heart a helping hand… and no, eating pistachio ice cream doesn’t count!

Stay healthy!