Add almonds to your daily diet!
A recent research involving people who engage in physically strenuous activity on weekends or part-time has shown that eating almonds on a daily basis can help boost their muscle recovery. Almonds were found to boost the level of beneficial fats in their blood.
About the trial
The clinical trial involved 38 men and 26 women between the ages of 30 and 65. About half of them were randomized to the almond-diet group. The other half belonged to the control group, who, instead of almonds, ate a calorie-matched cereal bar daily.
The researchers took blood and urine samples before and after the four-week period of dietary supplementation. Performance measures included a 90 minute session which comprised a 30-second anaerobic test, a 50-meter shuttle run test and vertical jump, bench press and leg-back strength exercises. Blood and urine samples were also taken immediately after this 90-minute session of exercise and then daily for four days afterward.
Participants reported their level of pain and fatigue
After each blood draw, the participants filled out the “Profile of Mood States” (POMS) questionnaire in which they rated the pain and stiffness which they felt after unaccustomed or strenuous exercise.
As expected, the 90-minute exercise led to an increase in the participants' self-reported feeling of muscle damage and muscle soreness. Their higher POMS score indicated decreased vigor and increased fatigue, anxiety and depression.
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How almond-diet group were at a better place
The researchers found that female and male participants who ate 57 grams of almonds daily for one month had more of the beneficial fat 12,13-dihydroxy-9Z-octadecenoic acid (12,13-DiHOME) in their blood right after a session of intense exercise, compared to the control participants who ate a calorie-matched cereal bar daily.
Benefits reaped by those who ate almonds
Prof. David Nieman, director of the Appalachian State University Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus, said that those who ate almonds “also reported feeling less fatigue and tension, better leg-back strength and decreased muscle damage after exercise” than those who didn’t eat almonds.
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How almonds help
“We conclude that almonds provide a unique and complex nutrient and polyphenol mixture that may support metabolic recovery from stressful levels of exercise. Almonds have high amounts of protein, healthy types of fats, vitamin E, minerals and fiber – and the brown skin of almonds contains polyphenols that end up in the large intestine and help control inflammation and oxidative stress,” Nieman concluded.
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