A handful of nuts could be the key to preventing heart disease

Eating a handful of nuts a couple of times a week can have tremendous benefits for your heart, research has shown.

A Harvard University study of more than 200,000 people, most of whom were followed for over three decades, “found that all types of nuts slash the risk of heart disease by nearly a quarter,” the Daily Mail reports.

“Strikingly, the Harvard University researchers said they also found no evidence that nuts fueled weight gain, despite their high calorie content and previous reports to the contrary.”

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The study followed the lifestyles of more than 210,000 male and female nurses and health professionals in the US for 32 years. Those who ate tree nuts like walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, pecans and peanuts two or more times a week “were 23% less likely to develop coronary heart disease and 15% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease,” The Daily Telegraph reports.

The researchers identified 14,136 cases of major cardiovascular disease, 8,390 of coronary heart disease and 5,910 of stroke - some of which were fatal.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the UK, with 160,000 people dying from it each year.

“Our findings support recommendations of increasing the intake of a variety of nuts, as part of healthy dietary patterns, to reduce the risk of chronic disease in the general populations,” lead author of the study and Harvard nutritionist Dr Marta Guasch-Ferre said.

“Each 28g serving of nuts was linked with a 13% further reduction in heart disease,” The Times says. “Nuts contain vitamins and healthy fatty acids that are thought to help to cut cholesterol and blood sugar.”

Unfortunately for those with a slightly sweeter tooth, no benefit was found in peanut butter.

The study could not prove that nuts directly improved heart health, but according to Dr Emilio Ros, from the Endocrinology and Nutrition service at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, “Raw nuts, if possible unpeeled and otherwise unprocessed, may be considered as natural health capsules that can be easily incorporated into any heart-protective diet to further cardiovascular well-being and promote healthy aging.”