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我们被告知不要多吃坚果，因为坚果中的脂肪和卡路里很高。但是，不吃坚果或花生并非明智的选择。现有研究证明：吃坚果和花生对身体非常有益，可以降低死于中风和心脏病的风险。
虽然早期的研究已表明食用坚果可以降低患心脏病、糖尿病和高血压的风险，但其主要关注美国和欧洲比较富裕的白人。此次研究更多地关注来自美国和中国的不同种族与收入情况的人群，表明坚果对不同背景的人都有益处。
舒晓鸥教授的研究团队对71,764名美国东南部低收入白人和黑人进行平均5.4年的跟踪调查，其中约50%的被调查者吃花生，其他人吃坚果；对134,265名上海市民进行6-12年的跟踪调查，调研内容只包括他们吃花生的数据。
统计结果显示，无论在中国还是美国，都是男性吃花生或坚果较多，女性偏少。在死亡风险方面，中方吃花生最多的人相比吃花生最少者低17%，美方常吃花生或坚果者比极少吃者低21%。此外，常吃花生或坚果的人，其死于心脏病的风险总体降低23%-38%。
舒晓鸥说，“花生与坚果不属于一类食品，花生是豆科植物，但它包含许多与坚果相似的营养成分和植物化学物质。相对于昂贵的坚果，花生是一种很好的替代食品。”花生物美价廉，有益健康，我们何不适当多吃点呢？
英文原文
Peanuts May Lower Risk Of Death From Heart Disease
Peanuts may reduce the risk of death from heart disease, a large study found, suggesting that the health benefits of this low-cost nut may be similar to pricier options like almonds and pistachios.
While previous studies have linked nut consumption to a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, the earlier research focused mostly on wealthier white people in the U.S. and Europe. This study, with a more ethnically and economically diverse population in the U.S. and China, suggests that nuts can benefit people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
'We can now tell people that peanuts are just as good as more expensive tree nuts, and that the benefit isn't just for white, upper class people, it's for everybody,' said senior study author Dr. Xiao-Ou Shu, a professor of epidemiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, in a phone interview.
Shu's team studied 71,764 people in the southeastern U.S. - mostly low-income, and about two-thirds African-American - and 134,265 residents of Shanghai.
They looked at how many grams of peanuts (including peanut butter) and other nuts participants ate on an average day and sorted them into five groups ranging from a low of less than 0.95 grams to a high of at least 18.45 grams.
A peanut - which is technically not a nut (it's a legume) - weighs about one gram, and there are about 28 peanuts in a one ounce serving.
The Chinese participants ate far fewer nuts than the Americans, and in both countries women generally ate less than men. Average daily nut consumption ranged from a low of 1.6 grams for Chinese women to a high of 16.4 grams for white men in the U.S. south.
In the American study, half the people were tracked for at least five years. In the Chinese group, half were tracked for six to 12 years. For the Americans, the risk of dying from any cause was 21 percent lower in the group that ate the most peanuts, compared to the group that ate the least. For the Chinese, the risk reduction was 17 percent.
Nuts and peanuts also lowered the risk of death from strokes and heart disease in both study groups, but not the risk of death from cancer or diabetes.
Peanut butter didn't curb the risk of death, however, possibly because it contained sugar or hydrogenated fat 'or some other added ingredients that nullified the benefit,' said Dr. David Maron, director of preventive cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the study.
Natural peanut butter, which has no added ingredients, might be just as beneficial as peanuts, Maron said in a phone interview.
The study didn't randomly compare peanut eaters to people who don't eat peanuts, which is the gold standard method for proving a benefit. An observational study like this can't prove that eating peanuts caused people to live longer. Still, the results, added to findings from previous research, make a compelling argument for including nuts in a healthy diet, said Dr. Mitchell Katz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, who wrote a commentary published with the study in JAMA Internal Medicine.
'Because most of the previous research was done on people of high socioeconomic status, there has been an assumption that maybe people who eat nuts are also doing other things that might help them live longer, like exercising more or following a healthier diet,' Katz told Reuters Health by phone. 'This study tells us that the nuts are beneficial, and it's not just because of the type of people who eat the nuts.'
Dietary guidelines emphasizing low-fat foods may have led some people to avoid nuts, even though the kind of fat in nuts is healthy, said Dr. Ethan Weiss of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn't involved in the study.
'We have forever been told not to eat nuts because (they're) fatty and high in calories, but that is getting blown up,' Weiss said by phone. 'It now turns out that it is really good for you to eat nuts and peanuts.'
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