Get in touch with your inner squirrel

I try to eat some walnuts everyday, typically throwing a few into some cold cereal. Smart guy, I am: a new study found that regularly eating a handful of walnuts can affect the blood pressure response to stress.

The people tested were given one of three diets: no walnuts, 1.3 ounces of walnuts (about 18 walnut halves) and a tablespoon of walnut oil substituted for some of the fat and protein in the average American diet, and walnuts, walnut oil, and 1.5 tablespoons of flaxseed oil.

The subjects were put under stress -- giving a speech -- and tested. The result: Including walnuts and walnut oil in the diet lowered both resting blood pressure and blood pressure responses to stress by two to three points.

The best result came with adding flaxseed oil.

Some of the participants also underwent a vascular ultrasound examination to measure artery dilation.  The results showed that adding flaxseed oil to the walnut diet significantly improved this test of vascular health.  The researchers have previously shown that adding flax to walnuts also lowered C-reactive protein levels, indicating an anti-inflammatory effect that could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Primary funding for the study came from a walnut trade group, but the beauty of this is that eating some walnuts everyday -- in place of some other source of fat, can't harm you. Otherwise, there would be dead squirrels everywhere.