Up Your Omega-3 For National Heart Month

With around 7.4 million people in the UK living with heart and circulatory diseases¹, looking after your heart health is a must. The good news, however, is that this doesn’t have to be difficult. Simple lifestyle tweaks such as changing your diet can have a big impact on your heart health. Omega-3 ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) is essential. Our bodies cannot make it, so it’s important to ensure that we eat foods that contain ALA for good health, normal growth and development.

Sensible snacking
Walnuts are the only tree nut to contain a significant amount of omega-3 ALA, with 2.7g in every handful (around 30g). Enjoying them as a snack or adding them to meals is a great place to start. One portion also contains fibre (1.4g for every 30g serving)² and polyunsaturated fats – making them a heart health powerhouse.

Want easy recipes that you can try tonight? You’ve come to the right place!

Enjoy a handful of California Walnuts a day to reap the three heart health benefits below – it’s as simple as 1, 2, 3!

1. Good Gut Health
   A recent clinical trial revealed that there may be a connection between heart and gut health, aided by the consumption of walnuts³. Findings from this new study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, show that consuming walnuts enriches certain gut bacteria in the digestive system associated with improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol. Researchers believe this could be due to the unique combination of bioactive compounds, fatty acids and dietary fibre found in walnuts.

2. Normal blood cholesterol levels
   High cholesterol is a risk factor in the development of coronary heart disease, but as walnuts are rich in omega-3 ALA, they can contribute to the maintenance of normal blood cholesterol levels.⁴ California Walnuts have also received the heart-healthy seal of approval from the cholesterol charity, HEART UK.

3. The prevention of heart disease
   Research has shown ALA to have a beneficial role in the prevention of heart disease⁵, which is responsible for 26 percent of all deaths in the UK⁶

Find out more about California Walnuts and start your healthy heart journey today and follow #ShareThePowerof3 on social.

1 BHF statistics Factsheet UK, December 2019
2 Food Standards Agency (2002), McCance & Widdowson’s The Composition of Foods, Seventh summary edition. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry
3 https://academic.oup.com/jn/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jn/nxz289/5680186?searchresult=1
4 EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA); Scientific Opinion on the substantiation of health claims related to walnuts and maintenance of normal blood LDL‐cholesterol concentrations (ID 1156, 1158) and improvement of endothelium‐dependent vasodilation (ID 1155, 1157) pursuant to Article 13(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. EFSA Journal 2011; 9( 4):2074. [19 pp.]. Doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2074
5 https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/j.efsa.2009.1252; https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2074
6 HEART UK State of the Nation: Cardiovascular Disease, October 2018