Want to keep your heart healthy? Handful of peanuts can be beneficial

New Delhi: A new study suggests that consuming peanuts with a meal may help in keeping your heart healthy and also protect you from cardiovascular illnesses.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University in the US recruited 15 healthy overweight and obese men for the study.

Participants ate a control meal with around 85 grammes (average serving size) of ground unsalted peanuts in the form of a shake.

A control group was fed a shake of similar nutritional quantity and quality, but without the peanuts. Blood samples from the subjects to measure lipid, lipoprotein and insulin levels after 30, 60, 120 and 240 minutes were taken.

Researchers found that there was a 32 per cent reduction in the triglyceride levels - a type of fat found in the bloodstream - after the consumption of the peanut meal compared to the control group.

The study showed that when peanuts are eaten with a meal the typical post-meal increase of triglycerides is blunted.

Eating peanuts can keep the cells that line the arteries healthy, helping them stay more elastic, researchers said.

(With PTI inputs)