Diet quality improves for parents and children when almonds are incorporated into their daily diet: a randomized, crossover study

Changes in diet quality during a 12 month weight loss randomised controlled trial

“…animal-based meats and plant oils [88]. The decrease in dietary MUFA was consistent with another study which also included 30 g/d of walnuts [87], but other studies of other nuts reported increases in fat as MUFA [71,72,89], reflecting variations in food composition by nut variety: different nuts were provided in these instances, hazelnuts [71,72] and almonds [89]. Hazelnuts are four times richer in MUFA, but contain seven times less PUFA than walnuts per 100 g [90] while almonds have three time more MUFA but three times less PUFA per 100 g compared to walnuts [90].…”

“…In studies where nut consumption was associated with higher energy intakes [70,72,86,89], they were not designed as weight loss interventions. Lower energy intakes in HealthTrack may have resulted from adherence to reduced energy diet plans provided to all participants, similar to other behavioural weight loss intervention programs with the inclusion [87] or exclusion of nuts [5,6].…”

Response to Letter to the Editor

“…However, applying the potential change noted above of a single standard deviation increase in NLit-P to the mean child HEI in our population (52.5) would theoretically increase HEI to 58.7, which corresponds to an increase from approximately the 50 th %ile to approximately the 75 th %ile of HEI reported in Guenther’s HEI-2010 validation study using the 2003–2004 NHANES dietary data 3 . Further, a 6.2 point improvement is somewhat comparable to the improvement seen in child HEI in a recent intervention where almonds were added to children’s diets 4 , resulting in an increase from 53.7 ± 2.6 to 61.4 ± 2.2. Thus, we maintain that the differences in HEI are meaningful, and we are hopeful that attention to nutrition literacy within the design of nutrition interventions will contribute to improvements in diet that translate to clinical effects.…”

The effect of almonds on vitamin E status and cardiovascular risk factors in Korean adults: a randomized clinical trial

“…The change in energy distribution from CHO to fat during the almond phase shifted the dietary pattern to one more consistent with the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) guidelines for healthy American adults, i.e., 50–60% calories from CHO, 15% from protein, and 25–35% from fat (≤7% of calories from SFA, up to 10% from PUFA, and up to 20% from MUFA) [28]. Even though the percent of energy from CHO during the almond phase remained within the recommended range for Koreans (55 ~ 65%) [29], we found almonds consumed as a snack enabled a larger change in the contribution of CHO and fat to total energy as compared to the studies with participants consuming Western diets [25, 26]. Almonds increased the intake of vitamin E, fiber, MUFA, and PUFA.…”

“…The addition of almonds to a daily diet may improve the nutritional quality of diverse populations by increasing the intake of unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, magnesium, and α-tocopherol [25, 26, 27]. We found that almonds at 56 g/day improved the nutrition quality of free-living Koreans consuming a typical national diet.…”