effect of walnut consumption on serum lipid profiles, high-sensitivity c-reactive protein and nitric oxide in patients with coronary artery disease

Background: coronary artery disease (cad) is one of the major causes of death worldwide. there is a direct relationship between increased levels of blood cholesterol, triglycerides (tg), low density lipoproteins (ldl), high density lipoproteins (hdl), nitric oxide (no), and high sensitivity c-reactive protein (hs-crp) and the cad. walnut may reduce these factors and consequently decrease the risk of cad. objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of walnut consumption on tg, ldl, cholesterol, hdl, no, and hs-crp in patients with cad and healthy people. patients and methods: in this randomized crossover clinical trial, 70 patients with cad were divided into two groups: case and control groups. the patients were given 40 g walnuts daily for 4 weeks. after 4 weeks, the tg, ldl, cholesterol, hdl, no and hs-crp levels were measured. the experiment was also carried out on healthy people (3 groups) with normal range of lipid. the ldl, hdl, cholesterol, and hs-crp levels were measured using commercially available kits. the nitric oxide level was measured using the griess reaction method. results: the cholesterol and ldl levels decreased significantly from 202.43 to 187.46 and 123.80 to 108.63 mmol/l (7.9% and 13.9 %), respectively in healthy subjects after the treatment (p < 0.01). in the experimental group, there was no significant difference in cholesterol (p = 0.110) and ldl levels (p = 0.176) before and after the treatment. moreover, no significant difference was observed in other parameters between the two groups. conclusions: the walnut consumption did not affect cholesterol levels in patients with cad; however, it might be administered as an agent for reducing the cholesterol, which is one of the risk factors associated with cad.