To say that walnuts are a nutritious food is a bit of an understatement. In fact, there's so much interest in this one nut that for the past 50 years scientists and leading industry experts have gathered together annually for a conference dedicated to research on walnuts. So in this article I'm going to look a five of its main and newly discovered benefits.

Here you will learn about the most important health benefits of walnuts

Number one, super plant source of omega-3s.

Well, it's significantly higher in omega-3 fatty acids than any other nut, providing 2.5 grams per one ounce or a 30-gram serving. Omega-3 fat from plants, including walnuts, is called alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA. It's an essential fat, meaning you have to get it from your diet. Now according to the Institute of Medicine, adequate intake of ALA is 1.6 and 1.1 grams per day for men and women respectively. A single serving of walnuts meets these guidelines. And for the record, observational studies show that for each gram of ALA that you eat per day decreases your risk of dying from heart disease by 10%.

Number two, promotes a healthy gut.

Now this is more of a recent discovery and it's particularly fascinating to me. Studies suggest that if your gut is rich in health-promoting bacteria and other microbes, your gut microbiota, you're more likely to have good overall health. An unhealthy composition of your microbiota can contribute to inflammation and disease in your gut and elsewhere in your body. Of course, what you can eat significantly influences the makeup of that gut bacteria. Eating walnuts may be one way to support the health of your microbiota and your gut. Now in this study of 194 people, a daily intake of 43 grams, or 1.5 ounces of walnuts, over eight weeks significantly affected the gut microbiome by enhancing probiotic and butyric acid-producing species in the study subjects, at least compared to a period of not eating walnuts. So that's just the first human study to show this, but it's pretty impressive so far. Watch your space, eat your walnuts.

Number three, may help manage type 2 diabetes

and lower your risk. Observational studies suggest that one reason walnuts are linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes is because they can help you lower your weight and maintain a healthy weight, and of course maintaining a healthy weight is really important for maintaining healthy blood sugar levels and minimizing or managing type 2 diabetes. That said, eating walnuts may help control blood sugar by mechanisms beyond their influence on weight control. For example, in this controlled study, in 100 people with type 2 diabetes, consuming one tablespoon of cold pressed walnut oil a day for three months while continuing their usual diabetes medication and diet, resulted in an 8% decrease in fasting blood sugar. Additionally the walnut oil users saw their hemoglobin A1c, which is a three-month average blood sugar marker, they saw that level decrease significantly by almost 8%. Now the control group showed no improvement in A1c or fasting blood sugar, and neither group had a change in their weight. So weight wasn't a factor here. Of course that was with walnut oil. It's much more concentrated than eating whole walnuts, but you would expect whole walnuts to have a similar effect, maybe not to that magnitude.

Number four, supports male reproductive health.

There is some early evidence that eating more walnuts may support sperm health and male fertility. When 117 healthy young men included two and a half ounces of 75 grams of walnuts daily in their Western-style diet for three months they had improved sperm shape, vitality, and mobility compared to men not eating nuts. The reason why is not really understood, but animal research suggests that eating walnuts may help protect sperm by reducing oxidative damage in their membranes. Look, further studies are needed to confirm this, but if you are a man who is worried or struggling with their fertility then it makes sense to add a handful of walnuts into your daily diet and see what happens.

Number five, supports good brain function.

It may just be a coincidence that the shell of a walnut is shaped like a brain but it turns out it could actually be quite good for your mind. I think alongside carrot this is the only instance where there's ridiculous graphics or memes that show foods that resemble, supposedly resemble the organs that they help is actually true. In a 10-month study of Alzheimer's disease, mice fed 6 to 9% of their calories as walnuts, which is equal to one to 1.5 ounces or 28 to 45 grams daily in people, these mice had a significant improvement in learning skills, memory, and anxiety reduction, compared to a walnut-free control group. Now observational studies in older adults have linked eating walnuts to better brain function, including faster processing speed, more mental flexibility, and better memory.

So these results are encouraging, but of course we're gonna need a lot more evidence, particularly evidence in humans, before we can make any firm conclusions. Nevertheless, it's like you're gonna keep hearing about walnuts as more and more research is published showing its additional health benefits. So you might as well add a small handful of walnuts to your regular diet.