Walnuts are noted for both their flavor and their texture. What most people don’t think about, however, are the great health benefits walnuts hold. Keep reading to learn some fun facts and walnut health benefits.

Fun Facts about Walnuts

• Walnuts are native to Central Asia, southern Europe, and the West Indies.
• The oldest evidence of walnuts goes back to about 2000 B.C. in Babylon.  
• Walnuts were grown in California since the late 1700s thanks to the Spanish missionaries there.
• The scientific name for walnuts, Juglans regia, comes the Romans (700 B.C.) thought that walnuts were food for their god of sky and light, Jupiter.    
• Uses for walnut wood include paneling, furniture, and gunstocks.
• There are four different kinds of walnuts
  • Paradox
  • Eastern black walnut
  • Northern California black walnut
  • Persian or English walnut
• China produces about 360,00 metric tons of walnuts a year.
  • The United States grows 294,000 metric tons a year and 90 percent are grown in varying places in California.

 

Walnut Health Benefits

Some people like walnuts while other people cannot stand eating them. The good news is that you can still use walnuts in cooking but make the taste and or texture less noticeable by using the nuts in different recipes. You put walnuts in soups, bakery, coleslaw, pesto, bread, and many other things.

 

1. Boosting Your Mood

Walnuts have a decent amount of omega-3, which is vital for a growing central nervous system. There have also been studies that find that omega-3 fatty acids can help to treat or calm a number of mood disorders, include borderline personality disorder and depression. Walnuts can also help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and help younger kids with grumpiness, hyperactivity, and tantrums.   

 

2. Brain Health

Omega-3 is not only important for the central nervous system. It is also very important for brain growth and development. This fatty acid plays a part in fighting off oxidative stress while improving neurogenesis and brain signaling. It can also help to protect your brain from things like epilepsy and dementia.  

In addition to the omega-3, walnuts also have ellagic acid, vitamin E, and folic acid. All three of the components help to improve memory and neuroprotection functions.  

 

3. Digestive Help

Eating walnuts can help the development of good bacteria and strengthen the microbiome in your stomach. By doing this, it makes it easier for your body to digest different foods. Walnuts also help to get clear waste and toxins from your digestive tract which also stops constipation.  

4. Heart Health

Walnuts are remarkable when it comes what they can do for your heart. Incorporating more walnuts to your diet can lessen overall inflammation, lessen the chances of cardiovascular disease, decrease chances of heart disease, and get cholesterol to healthier levels.

 

5. Antioxidants

Antioxidants are amazing for your body in a number of different ways. They fight off free radicals that lead to cancer, lower LDL (bad cholesterol) levels, stave off illnesses, and stop oxidative damage. Walnuts are higher in antioxidants than most nuts. The antioxidants that walnuts have are melatonin, vitamin E, and polyphenols.

6. Weight Control  

There are still some tests being done to see exactly how walnuts help when it comes to weight control, but it has been determined that they do in fact help. What studies have shown so far is that including walnuts in your diet helps to control your appetite in part by activating the portion of your brain that helps you to not crave temp different foods that you know are not the healthiest for you. Also, walnuts are rather high in calories, but your body does not actually absorb all of them.

 

7. Healthy Aging

Through fiber, vitamins, and minerals walnuts help you to age in a healthier way. The pre-listed compounds in walnuts help you to stay physically mobile and strong. One study even showed that eating walnuts regularly decreases the chances of physical impairment by at least 13 percent.

 

8. Type Two Diabetes

For help with Type Two, you are going to want to use the walnut oil rather than the walnut itself. By taking a tablespoon walnut oil (cold-pressed) orally once a day for three months, the overall chances of type two went down, and the average blood sugar reading of three months (the A1C) was lower in hemoglobin by eight percent.

9. Male Fertility

Eating walnuts have been found to increase the health of sperm. the shape, mobility, and limiting the number of oxidative damages that the membranes take. All you have to do is eat two and a half ounces or 75 grams of walnuts a day when trying to have a baby with your partner.

 

10. Cancer Resistance

It was briefly mentioned that walnuts can fight cancer-causing free radicals because of the antioxidants they have. What was not talked about is just how powerful those antioxidants are against cancer. When it comes to prostate cancer, eating two point four ounces of walnuts daily for 18 weeks slowed the growth of the tumors by between 30 and 40 percent. On the other hand, two handfuls of walnuts a day shrunk the chances of getting breast cancer and the slowed the growth of tumors both by 50 percent.

11. Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic Syndrome, or MetS, is a mixture of different problems that all relate to the metabolism. Some of the issues include high blood pressure, obesity, bad cholesterol levels, and having trouble with keeping triglycerides under control. There have been studies that show that eating just one ounce a day for two or three months can decrease different problems that you might have because of Metabolic Syndrome.

 

12. Bone Health

The fatty acids in walnuts do more for you than protect and strengthen your brain. They also strengthen your bones. The fatty acids keep calcium in your body by amping the absorption and lessening the amount that leaves your body through urination.

13. Metabolism

Not only do help walnuts help with MetS and your digestive tract, but they help your overall metabolism. The things in walnuts that allow such help are zinc, calcium, manganese, selenium, iron, copper, magnesium, potassium. All of these minerals aid with the synthesis of nucleic acid and the growth and development of the metabolism.

 

14. Better Sleep

You add walnuts to your food to help you get better sleep more often because the nuts increase and improve the melatonin in your blood. Melatonin is a hormone in your brain that helps you to get tired and stay asleep.

 

15. Skin Care

Not only do the antioxidants keep away cancer, but they also protect your skin from free radicals, lasting scars, dry skin, the dark circles you get under your eyes, and wrinkles.

You can make different kinds of face scrubs. The of the easier scrub to make only needs three ingredients. All you need to do take a little bit of sugar in the palm of your hand with some crushed walnuts and several drops of lemon juice. Once you have these in your hand, you need to mix them together as best you can and then just apply it your face and or neck with circular massages and rinse it off after maybe ten minutes.

16. Respiratory

Gargling extract from black walnuts can calm a sore throat and make it easier to breathe because of the anti-inflammation components in it calming the irritation and better opening the airways.

 

17. Stress

Zinc and magnesium are both known to help when it comes to stress levels. Walnuts let the two minerals work together to lessen the amount of stress and anxiety you suffer from. They help you to think more clearly and relax your mind.   

Like with all foods, eating some walnuts is good but too much can be bad. If you have an allergy to most nuts, you want to talk to your doctor about whether or not you are also allergic to walnuts before trying to use them for any of these benefits. Eating too many walnuts can also cause trouble for breastfeeding mothers; can cause diarrhea, nausea, bloating, and stomach pain; and it can actually lead to weight gain rather than helping you to get rid of it.

        

Sources

https://www.naturalfoodseries.com/11-health-benefits-walnuts/

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https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/seed-and-nut/health-benefits-of-walnuts.html#health-benefits

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/19/7-walnuts-benefits.aspx

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https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-walnuts#section1

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-walnuts

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http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/dsadditions/Walnut_Fact_Sheet/