 The shocking benefits of eating pistachios every day for 30 days. Do you need a healthy movie snack or something easy to eat on the go? Look no further than pistachios. Not only are they delicious, but they are also one of the healthiest nuts on the planet. What's the benefit of pistachios? Well, first of all, if you've read my most recent book, Unlocking the Keto Code, you know that pistachios are one of the richest sources of melatonin that there is. Now, what the heck is melatonin? Well, most of you think about melatonin and you think about the sleep hormone. And in fact, it's true. Our pineal gland, this little bitty gland in the middle of our brain, produces melatonin at the time or just before we go to sleep and we have elevated melatonin levels during sleep. And so for many, many years we've associated melatonin with production of sleep. But as you found out, in fact, the reason melatonin rises during the time we're asleep is because melatonin is only one of two available antioxidants inside mitochondria. And mitochondria, of course, are the energy producing organelles in all of ourselves, including our brain. So the recent research is that melatonin is produced during sleep because that's when the repair work of our brain in our brain's mitochondria takes place. And so naturally you'd want more antioxidant melatonin production during sleep. But surprisingly, because melatonin is our preferred antioxidant, getting melatonin throughout the day also protects our mitochondria during daytime. And the best source for melatonin is pistachios. So it's not going to put you to sleep. It's going to repair your mitochondria while you're eating. So do not think, oh, pistachios make me sleepy. They're actually repairing your mitochondria. Now an antioxidant is there because as many of you have learned, mitochondria making ATP, they get damaged. It's hard work. Your mitochondria are running sweatshops trying to make you ATP. And all that damage has a consequence. In fact, many of us believe that the ravages of what we view as aging is actually accumulated mitochondrial damage. So if we can get one of the two major antioxidants on a daily basis into our diet, then why wouldn't we? Now you're going, well, wait a minute, melatonin is a sleep hormone and plants don't go to sleep. Why do plants produce melatonin? Why in the world would a pistachio have melatonin? Well, just like we need melatonin to protect our mitochondria, plants have their own mitochondria. They're called chloroplasts. And these mitochondrion plants are also damaged, believe it or not, by sunlight. Sunlight is necessary for plants to make ATP, but sunlight is damaging to their mitochondria. So plants produce melatonin and polyphenols to protect their mitochondria. So we can get melatonin from red wine. We can get melatonin from olive oil. We can get melatonin from mushrooms. And in fact, many of the theories of the French paradox where the French, despite eating large amounts of fatty things and fatty cheeses, have significantly less coronary artery disease than Americans. The French paradox or the benefit of the Mediterranean diet may be, in fact, the melatonin content of the foods that these people are eating and drinking. Let me give you an example. One study showed that over an eight-week period of prediabetic individuals. Now, calling somebody a prediabetic is like telling a woman she's a little bit pregnant. There's no difference, folks. I can assure you. So these are metabolically inflexible individuals. They were given 75 grams of pistachios per day. At the end of eight weeks, their oxidized LDL decreased significantly. Now, what the heck does that mean? Well, LDL is, quote, the bad cholesterol. And rather than give you a cholesterol lesson today, it doesn't matter what your LDL cholesterol is as long as that cholesterol is not oxidized, rusty or rancid. If cholesterol is rusty or rancid, then it has the potential to stick to blood vessels. If it's not rusty or rancid, not oxidized, then it will not stick to blood vessels and promote heart disease. So lowering oxidized LDL is a really important thing to do. In fact, I measure oxidized LDL in all my patients every three to six months to see how we're doing. So adding pistachios to prediabetics lowered their oxidized LDL. In another study, this is even better, a Mediterranean diet was administered to normal cholesterol, 32 healthy young men for four weeks. After four weeks, the participants continued to receive the Mediterranean diet, but pistachios were added to the diet for four more weeks. Just by adding the pistachios, the participants showed an improved blood glucose level, improved endothelial function. That means how flexible your blood vessels are. It also means that your blood vessels aren't sticky, that they aren't lined with flypaper, and I measure this in my clinics, and a reduction in oxidative stress markers. Same sort of thing. Oxidation is really what we're trying to avoid. Oxidation of our red blood cells, oxidation of our glucose, oxidation of our LDL. And so just adding pistachios to a perfect Mediterranean diet improved things even more. So that's why in a tasty way, adding pistachios to anybody's diet is the sine qua non of a healthy snack. So add pistachios to your diet. They're great roasted or raw. Interestingly enough, roasting sometimes affects the polyphenol content of nuts. But in the case of pistachios, it's been shown that roasting has no effect on the polyphenol content. Now, if you got a choice by the in-shell pistachios rather than the already peeled pistachios, there's two reasons for this. Number one, fun fact. Once you crack open that pistachio shell, you'll see that there's a little membrane, a little almost looks like a feather attached to the pistachio. That's actually the highest polyphenol content of the entire pistachio. And so get that thing and eat it. The other thing is showing pistachios slows you down. And it will take you a longer time to get those pistachios in you. And you'll get fuller, faster, and quite frankly, you won't eat as many pistachios. Pistachio butter, if you can find it, it's great. It's expensive, but it's another great way to get pistachios in your diet. In fact, check out my pistachio cookie recipe right here on my YouTube channel. It's fabulous. They're also great in salads, put them in trail mix, make homemade granola bars with pistachios. Hummus, make hummus with pistachios. And soups, you can actually blend them into soups. So there's numerous ways to get pistachios in your diet. And remember, you're going to get a double whammy of melatonin, which is going to protect your mitochondria. And you're going to get polyphenols, which is going to protect and boost your mitochondrial function. All in one of those tasty snacks you can get. In fact, my wife and I have pistachios as our snack every night right before dinner. I recommend that you do too. This next one is sure to surprise you. High fructose corn syrup is one of the leading causes of obesity in America.