
Do the Health Benefits of Peanut Butter Include Longevity?
Why are nuts associated with decreased mortality, but not peanut butter?
Topic summary contributed by volunteer(s): Mimi
Peanuts are technically not nuts; they belong to the legume family. However, they should be considered nuts because of their nutritional profile. Peanuts and peanut butter contain many vitamins, minerals, plant compounds, and antioxidants, and have numerous health benefits. Pairing vegetables with peanut butter has even been suggested for vegetable-resistant children.
Peanuts and peanut butter are high-calorie foods. Studies were conducted to find out whether ingesting these foods contributes to weight gain, and concluded that when either half a cup of peanuts or half a cup of peanut butter was fed to people in addition to their regular diet, every day for a month, neither group gained weight.
Peanuts and peanut butter are one of the top sources of arginine, a type of amino acid involved in protein synthesis. A 2010 study suggests that the arginine content of nuts may boost fat–burning in the body.
Early nut consumption may prevent breast cancer. A 2013 study found that those eating more peanut butter, nuts, beans, lentils, soybeans, or corn had a fraction of the risk for fibrocystic breast disease. The protective effects were strongest for those with a family history of breast cancer.
Alzheimer’s disease appears to start in the part of the brain that handles smell before spreading to other brain regions. One of the first clinical signs of the disease is changes in the sense of smell. A group of researchers at the University of Florida conducted a smell test, asking Alzheimer’s patients to smell a spoonful of peanut butter at a short distance from each nostril. The peanut butter had to get all the way up to two inches from the left nostril to be detected in all patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease.
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Why are nuts associated with decreased mortality, but not peanut butter?
The effects of ketogenic diets on nutrient sufficiency, gut flora, and heart disease risk.
The remarkable impact of the structure of food beyond nutritional content or composition.
Dairy is compared to other foods for cardiovascular (heart attack and stroke) risk.
In my book How Not to Die, I center my recommendations around a Daily Dozen checklist of everything I try to fit into my daily routine.
In my book How Not to Die, I center my recommendations around a Daily Dozen checklist of all the things I try to fit into my daily routine.
Slow-paced breathing at the right frequency can result in a vagal nerve activation, which may have a variety of beneficial effects.
Before drugs came along, the consumption of vinegar with meals was used as a folk remedy for diabetes, but it wasn’t put to the test until recently.
A quick, non-invasive, and inexpensive test for the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease is developed using only a ruler and some peanut butter.
Within hours the blood of those fed walnuts is able to suppress the growth of breast cancer cells in a petri dish. Which nut might work best, though—almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, peanuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, or walnuts?