How Much Can A Handful Of Walnuts Help vs Inflammation, Really?

“Eat this food because it has anti-inflammatory properties” is common health advice, but looking at the numbers, sometimes we may be given to wonder how useful it is, given the alternative of taking anti-oxidant (and thus usually anti-inflammatory) supplements that have much higher dosages.

But sometimes, getting things from food is best, even if often for reasons that are not fully known for sure, just, the results aren’t making themselves up, so clearly there is at least one reason, if not several.

Often this is strongest in the case of phytochemicals like polyphenols, but it’s often true for vitamins and minerals too.

Here’s an example of making sure to get the compounds from a wide variety of dietary sources: Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?

As for why you might want to favor getting things from food if you can, then while the title says “vitamins”, the following book discusses an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients; the “other nutrients” category including amino acids (branched chain and essential), prebiotics and probiotics, and triglycerides of various kinds:

Eat Your Vitamins – by Mascha Davis, RDN ← see our review, here

Now, back to nuts…

You are what you eat

Most recently, researchers (Dr. Lynnley Huey Stern et al.) did a two-year randomized controlled trial followed 319 older adults, comparing daily walnut consumption with a control group that avoided walnuts and substantially limited other nuts.

Specifically, participants in the walnut group consumed 1–2 ounces daily, with no other dietary changes prescribed.

The results, in numbers:

❝The mean DII (SE) score was –0.025 (0.14) in the walnut group and 0.615 (0.14) in the control diet group (P < .01). At the nutrient level, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (β = –0.291; 95% CI, –0.450 to –0.132; P < .01), magnesium (β = –0.014; 95% CI, –0.015 to –0.013; P < .01), carbohydrate (β = –0.009; 95% CI, –0.014 to –0.005; P < .01), fiber (β = –0.120; 95% CI, –0.133 to –0.106; P = .05), and protein (β = –0.020; 95% CI, –0.031 to –0.008; P < .01) were associated with a more anti-inflammatory DII score, whereas intake of total and saturated fat was associated with a higher, more proinflammatory, DII score (β = 0.033; 95% CI, 0.020-0.045; P < .01 and β = 0.102; 95% CI, 0.080-0.125; P < .01, respectively).❞

Translating that from sciencese:

After two years, the walnut group had slightly but statistically significantly lower Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) scores than the control group, indicating that the walnuts indeed were associated with lower inflammation levels, and that therefore yes, even adding just a single whole food such as walnuts may be a “may be a feasible complementary strategy for favorably improving the inflammatory potential of a diet”

You can read the paper in full, here: The Dietary Inflammatory Index Is Lower Among Healthy Older Adults Consuming a Walnut-Supplemented Diet. Ancillary Results From the Walnuts and Healthy Aging Randomized Controlled Trial

Want to learn more?

Lest our dear beloved almonds feel forsaken, we would also like to direct you to:

What 47 Almonds Can Do For your Gut, Heart, Skin, & more

Enjoy!