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DOUBLE Olympic champion Kelly Holmes, claims that her secret weapon in warding off fatigue during her qualifying rounds in the Olympics was to munch on a bag of nuts after every race. "Cashew nuts are my little secret," says the 34-year-old from Tonbridge , Kent , who won the 800 metre and 1500 metre events in Athens . Holmes claimed the nuts helped to boost her powers of recovery so that her body was well prepared for its next test of speed and endurance. Could she be right?
"There is definitely something in her theory," says Jeanette Crosland, a sports dietitian for the British Olympic Association, who advises many of the country's top sports people. "All nuts are a rich source of dietary protein which is needed to enhance the recovery process of muscles after intense activity."
Generally, says Crosland, the primary aim for athletes is to replace fluid and carbohydrate before protein, but she adds that "with nuts also providing carbohydrate and essential minerals, including potassium, lost in sweat, they make a very useful immediate post-training snack for anyone who has performed a tough work-out". She says that a 50g (1oz) serving of cashews provides one fifth of a woman's daily iron requirement and 20 nuts provides more than one tenth of a man's daily zinc needs. Indeed, Holmes could be getting more health benefits from her nut habit than she realises. Cashews and other nuts are among the foods highlighted in recent studies as potential weapons in the fight against serious diseases.
At the American Association for Cancer Research's annual conference this year, Professor John Radcliffe, a nutrition researcher at Texas Women's University, reported that a regular consumption of nuts can cut the risk of bladder cancer in half. In his study, based on questionnaires about the nutritional habits of 10,000 people, Radcliffe found that people who consumed the highest amount of vitamin E, of which nuts are among the richest food sources, had 50 per cent lower incidence of cancer of the bladder. Just a handful each day, he said, could make all the difference.
Elsewhere, nut consumption has been linked to a reduction in the onset of type 2 diabetes. Research published earlier this year in the journal Diabetes Care looked at the health records and diets of more than 4,000 men and women aged 40-69. Those with a high intake of vitamin E and alpha-tocopherol (a form of vitamin E considered particularly useful to the body because of its ability to circulate to all tissues) from cashews, almonds and walnuts were less likely to suffer from the disease.
Dr Anne Nugent, a nutrition scientist for the British Nutrition Foundation, says: "Unsalted nuts are definitely a healthy snack food. Although some nuts are relatively high in fat, it is the healthier, mono-unsaturated fat they contain, like that in olive oil, which has been proven to have heart-protective effects."
There is some evidence that nuts can even be helpful when it comes to shedding unwanted pounds. Of the 83,000 women followed by Harvard School of Public Health, it was shown that those who ate an ounce of nuts five times a week had less heart disease, and were invariably thinner than the rest.
Another study published in Journal of Nutrition found that people who replaced half the fat in their daily diets with almonds experienced a drop in harmful LDL cholesterol by 6 per cent over six weeks.
"Walnuts are thought to be particularly effective at cholesterol-lowering," says Louise Sutton, a dietitian at Leeds Metropolitan University . "They contain unsaturated fats like linoleic acids, which is converted to a blood-thinning agent in the body."
Brazil nuts, a rich source of selenium, were linked last year with a reduced risk of breast cancer in some women by scientists at the University of Illinois , who claimed that the mineral interacts with a natural body chemical to offer protection against the disease.
In fact, if it's long-term health you are seeking, the professional advice is: go nuts.
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