Peanuts in the shell, shelled and peeled

Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 4.0

Peanut

Eaten alone, peanuts change neither weight, blood pressure, nor LDL in trials; they raise HDL slightly. Links to less diabetes and death come from observational studies.

Benefits

• HDL cholesterol: in a meta-analysis of 13 randomized trials, eating peanuts increased "good" HDL cholesterol by 2.72 mg/dL, especially in healthy people and beyond 12 weeks.
• Triglycerides: in 15 adults with normal cholesterol, about 500 kcal of peanuts per day lowered triglycerides by 24% as an addition for three weeks, and by 17% when replacing other fats for eight weeks.
• Instead of candy: in 25 healthy adults, two weeks of calorie-rich snacking caused weight and waist circumference gain with candy, not with peanuts, and LDL was lower at the end of the trial in the peanut group (2.1 vs 2.6 mmol/L).
• Postprandial blood glucose: in 15 obese women at risk for diabetes, 42.5 g of peanut butter added to breakfast reduced the rise in blood glucose after the next lunch and the desire to eat; whole peanuts did the same, without reaching significance.
• Memory: in 63 healthy young adults, 25 g per day of roasted peanuts with their skins or 32 g of peanut butter for six months improved immediate memory; peanuts with skins also reduced anxiety compared to a butter without fiber or polyphenols.
• Type 2 diabetes (observation): in 83,818 nurses followed for 16 years, those who ate tree nuts 5 times a week or more had a diabetes risk of 0.73 compared to those who never ate them, and 0.79 for peanut butter 5 times a week or more.
• Mortality (observation): in a Dutch cohort of 120,852 people, peanuts and tree nuts went with lower mortality, not peanut butter.