Cholesterol

The participants then switched diets and continued eating only food provided by the researchers for another five weeks.

The Healthy Heart diet with macadamia nuts did reduce total "We observed a reduction in LDL similar to that seen with other tree nuts like walnuts and almonds," says Griel.

Individual calorie levels were used for each participant so that they did not gain or lose weight during the study.

Both diets were matched for total fat, containing 33 percent calories from total fat.

The Heart Healthy diet with macadamia nuts had 7 percent saturated fat, 18 percent monounsaturated fat and 5 percent polyunsaturated fat.

The standard American diet had 13 percent saturated fat, 11 percent monounsaturated fat and 5 percent polyunsaturated fat.

The macadamia nut diet included macadamia nuts as a snack, mixed into meals, as a salad topping and in cookies and muffins.

"The total fat was the same in both diets," says Griel.

"We substituted the macadamia nuts for other sources of fat and protein in the diet.

For example, we could switch skim milk for 2 percent milk and add some macadamia nuts." Macadamia nuts are nati...

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