 We've known increased nut consumption has been associated with reduced risk of major chronic diseases, including heart disease and diabetes, but to those who eat nuts actually live longer lives. Clinical trials have shown nuts help lower cholesterol and oxidation and improve our arterial function and blood sugar levels, but to solve this translate into greater longevity. Researchers at Harvard examined the association between nut consumption and subsequent mortality of over 100,000 people fall for decades. In that time, tens of thousands died, but those that ate nuts every day lived significantly longer. Daily, nut consumers had fewer cancer deaths, heart disease deaths, and fewer deaths from respiratory disease. And this was after controlling for other lifestyle factors, so nut consumers lived significantly longer whether they were older or younger, fat or skinny, whether they exercised more or smoked, drank, or ate other foods that may affect mortality. But nuts are so filled with fat, there may be a concern that frequent nut consumption can result in weight gain. However, that's not what they found, and in fact other studies have associated nut consumption with a slimmer waste, less weight gain, lower risk of obesity. If you look at all the studies put together, it's pretty much a wash, diets enriched with nuts do not seem to affect body weight, body mass index, or waste circumference much at all. Just for a visual, this is one of the most recent such studies in which subjects were told to add to their diets either 0, 70, or 120 pistachios to their daily diet as quite an afternoon snack every day for three months, and the results looked like this. You can't even tell which line is which, whether they're eating no nuts or over 100 a day. Hence it appears the incorporation of nuts about one or two small handfuls a day would be advisable to ensure various health benefits without the risk of body weight gain. What was nice about this review is that there was no apparent ties to the nut industry. How nuts do we have to go? Not much, just a few servings a week may boost our lifespan and lower cancer rates, but it appears we have to keep it up. In a predimed study, with long-time nut eaters were told to cut down on eating nuts or choose extra virgin olive oil. Within five years they apparently lost much of their longevity benefit. The group that started out eating nuts and continued to eat at least the same amount of nuts had the significant survival advantage.