Cholesterol

After a two-week run-in diet containing 35 percent fat and 11 percent saturated fats, each test diet lasted for four weeks during which time participants ate only foods supplied by the study.

The researchers reported the results of this study at Experimental Biology 2007 today (April 30) in Washington, D.C.

The diets included a Step I Diet – a standard heart healthy diet with 25 percent fat and 8 percent saturated fat, a diet containing 1.5 ounces of pistachios that was a Step I Diet with 30 percent total fat and 8 percent saturated fat and a diet containing 3 ounces of pistachios that was a Step I Diet containing 34 percent fat and 8 percent saturated fat.

At the end of each four-week diet regime, the researchers measured blood pressure and total peripheral vascular resistance at rest and during two stress tests.

The two tests consisted of a physical test and a psychological test.

The physical test consists of putting one foot in a bucket of ice water for 2.5 minutes.

The psychological test asks participants to listen to two numbers, add them in their head and say the answer.

Then they hear another number and they must add it to the second number they heard, not the sum they spoke.

"The ice water is a stimulus for the sympathetic nervous system, but it is very different form the stressors we encounter every d...

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