Daily nut intake may be most beneficial for those with sub-optimal diet quality
A prospective cohort study published recently in Age and Ageing set out to determine whether nut consumption was associated with disability-free survival —a measure of healthy lifespan— in adults aged 70 years and older and whether this association varied according to overall diet quality.
The study involved 9,916 participants, of whom 54% were women and 46% were men, with a mean age of 77 years. Frequency of nut intake was determined with a 49-item food frequency questionnaire. Disability-free survival was measured as survival without dementia or major physical disability. The follow-up period was 3.9 years.
The findings showed that the risk of reaching the end of disability-free survival —i.e., onset of dementia, persistent physical disability, or death— was 23% lower for those who consumed nuts daily than for those who rarely or never ate nuts. Subgroup analysis showed a significant association between daily nut consumption and healthy lifespan among individuals in the second diet-quality tertile, suggesting that regular nut intake may be most beneficial for individuals with suboptimal diet quality overall.
Wild, H., Nurgozhina, M., Gasevic, D., Coates, A. M., Woods, R. L., Ryan, J., Beilin, L., Govindaraju, T., McNeil, J. J., & Owen, A. J. (2024). Nut consumption and disability-free survival in community-dwelling older adults: a prospective cohort study. Age and Ageing, 53(11), afae239.