Clinical trial · Nutrition · 13 Nov 2026
In 326 older adults, two years of a walnut diet had little effect on body fat
Source: Nutrients
What the research found
A two-year randomized diet trial was published on 13 November 2026. The Walnuts and Healthy Aging trial ran in Barcelona and Loma Linda. This report covers 326 people from the Barcelona site, ages 63 to 79, including 220 women. They are older adults. The abstract does not limit the cohort to one sex. One group ate a diet with walnuts at 15 percent of daily energy. The other ate a control diet with no walnuts. Dual-energy X-ray scans tracked body weight, body fat, and fat-free mass. After two years, total and android fat rose, and gynoid fat and fat-free mass fell, in both sexes and both groups. Walnut versus control showed no clear difference, except a small rise in the android-to-gynoid ratio among women. On the walnut diet only, men with FTO-rs1861868 CC showed adverse composition changes versus T carriers, and that cell was small. APOE genotype did not change the result. The authors describe little effect on adiposity. A diet comparison, not a product test. DOI 10.3390/nu18223779. Not medical advice.
Evidence level: Clinical trial. This is among the stronger kinds of evidence, but one study rarely settles a question.
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