Eating Walnuts Protects Your Brain from Oxidative Damage
Eating walnuts has been proven to offer protection from oxidative damage caused by H2O2, or hydrogen peroxide, a chemical naturally produced as a waste product by human cells. A study was done in 2023 by researchers from the Beijing Technology and Business University in Beijing, China.1 They isolated two important beneficial chemicals in walnuts, walnut polyphenols (WP) and urolithin A (UroA) to determine if these chemicals have protective benefits against hydrogen peroxide. They found that WP and UroA have “neuroprotective effects against oxidative stress.” This means eating walnuts promotes better brain health.
Walnuts Protect Against Damage to Cells
The key finding is that protection against all types of oxidative damage is provided by eating walnuts. The study states, “WP and UroA treatment also relieved H2O2-induced oxidative stress including overproduction of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS).” This is a crucial help to overall health because, as the National Institute of Health explains, “Reactive oxygen species (ROS) can cause damage to the basic building blocks of the cell including DNA, protein and lipids.” Essentially, including walnuts in your diet can help to decrease damage done to your cells by ROS.
Walnuts Have a Lot of Important Nutrients. Eat them!
Walnuts are delicious and nutritious. They are a solid source of protein, healthy unsaturated fats, dietary fiber, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and iron. Walnuts provide antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, both of which have a wide range of health benefits. Should you start eating walnuts on a regular basis, to improve your health? There’s plenty of evidence that you should!
- Liu, Z., True, A. D., & Xiong, Y. L. (2015b). Curtailing Oxidation-Induced loss of myosin gelling potential by pyrophosphate through shielding the S1 subfragment. Journal of Food Science, 80(7), C1468–C1475. https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.12904
