An international team of researchers has conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies of nut consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality to provide a current and comprehensive assessment of the available evidence.
Pubmed and EMBASE databases were used to search published prospective studies of nut intake among adult populations and incidence or mortality of the diseases mentioned above. Twenty studies were included in the meta-analysis and results concluded that a higher nut consumption is associated with reduced risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality, and possibly mortality from diabetes, respiratory disease and infectious disease.
They estimated that approximately 4.4 million deaths in North and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific may be attributable to a nut intake below 20 grams per day. The study was recently published in BMC Medicine journal.