The findings of the study were published in ‘The Journal of Nutrition’. Participants at risk for cardiovascular disease who ate pecans during an eight-week intervention showed significant improvements in total cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, in the study conducted by researchers in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“This dietary intervention, when put in the context of different intervention studies, was extremely successful,” said Jamie Cooper, a professor in the FACS department of nutritional sciences and one of the study’s authors.

“We had some people who actually went from having high cholesterol at the start of the study to no longer being in that category after the intervention,” Cooper added.

Researchers saw an average drop of 5 per cent in total cholesterol and between 6 per cent and 9 per cent in LDL among participants who consumed pecans.

For context, researchers referred to a previous meta-analysis of 51 exercise interventions designed to lower cholesterol that reported an average reduction of 1 per cent in total cholesterol and 5 per cent in LDL cholesterol.

“The addition of pecans to the diet not only produced a greater and more consistent reduction in total cholesterol and LDL compared to many other lifestyle interventions but may also be a more sustainable approach for long-term health,” Cooper said.

“Some research shows that even a 1 per cent reduction in LDL is associated with a small reduction of coronary artery disease risk, so these reductions are definitely clinically meaningful,” Cooper added.