“Macadamia Nut Becomes Latest Member of “Good Nut Club”
By Mike Fillon, MS
WebMD Medical News

Add the macadamia to the growing list of healthy nuts. A study from the University of Hawaii shows that a diet containing the high-fat nuts can actually improve cholesterol levels.

“The conventional wisdom still is that macadamia nuts are so good that they must be bad for you,” says Curb. “This study indicates that its preconception is not true and that macadamia nuts can actually be part of a healthy diet,” lead researcher J. David Curb, tells WebMD. Curb is a professor of geriatric medicine and clinical epidemiology at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine and chief of the Division of Clinical Epidemiology in Honolulu.

Curb says macadamia nuts are high in oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid also found in olive oil and canola oil, which is believed to be beneficial in cutting cholesterol. Also, the nuts are the only food to also contain significant amounts of palmitoleic acid, another monounsaturated fatty acid that is good for you.

Also, the American Heart Association (AHA) reports that in a 12- year study of more than 22,000 doctors in the Physicians Health Study, men whose diets contained high quantities of nuts decreased the risk of dying from heart disease.