The 4-Week Plan to Younger Arteries

goal: You want your blood to flow more freely through your arteries, like it did when you were a kid. The plan: Eat 8 nuts a day for 4 weeks. Yep, it could be that simple. When people in a study replaced some of the monounsaturated fats in their diets with 8 to 13 walnuts a day, their blood vessels expanded after just a few weeks, allowing better blood flow. ...........


The Alpha Factor
Walnuts are rich in cholesterol-lowering alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) as well as antioxidants, a heart-healthy form of vitamin E, and L-arginine -- an amino acid that helps lower blood pressure. So it makes sense that when people with moderately high cholesterol eat a daily helping of the nuts, good things happen. And it did: In one study, not only did their blood vessels open wide, but also their total cholesterol fell and their bad LDL cholesterol dropped 6 percent!

Antioxidants and More
In the study, people ate walnuts for snacks, with meals, and in desserts and salads to replace some monounsaturated fats in their diets.