Nature’s Diet Pill May be Walnuts

If you are looking for another snack that can help you curb your appetite during the day, researchers may have cracked the shell, we mean code: Walnuts.

Researchers did a very interesting study with nine obese patients in a hospital. They were broken into two groups: One given smoothies with a large amount of walnuts, while the others drank a smoothie that seemed the same but did not contain walnuts. This went on for five days, then a break, then another five days of smoothies. And the effects were odd and impressive, according to this NY Times article:

…when people looked at pictures of high-fat food, activation in the insula, a part of the brain involved in appetite and impulse control, increased among those who drank the walnut smoothie, but not among placebo drinkers.

This means that the walnut smoothie drinkers were less likely to act upon their next doughnut or chip craving. The one catch is that, believe it or not, a walnut commission asked for the study, but walnuts were already considered an omega-3 boost and there were health benefits that people believed existed. So regardless of who funded it, this study shows that the healthy effects of walnuts may be more than we expected.

-Shane M.