Research says eating walnuts improves critical thinking

Thursday, September 29, 2011 by: Kim Evans
Tags: walnuts, brain function, health news

(NewsTarget) Walnuts have long been known to influence the brain and in the natural health world, they're known as a key brain food. Now, according to research published in the British Journal of Nutrition, eating walnuts regularly can significantly increase critical thinking and especially what's called inferential reasoning.

Inferential reasoning is the ability to infer truth from other known truth and it is also the ability to deduce information based on prior experience and context. It's sometimes thought that there are two fundamental types of reasoning. So dramatically improving one is an enormous step in the right direction, and it's nice that it can be done by an easy dietary addition.

This research was done at Andrews University and led by Peter Pribis, associate professor of nutrition and wellness. Two groups of Andrews students were used: the students either ate banana bread with ground walnuts in it or a similar looking and tasting banana bread without walnuts. Then, after eight weeks of either eating walnuts or not, the students were tested for inferential reasoning and other cognitive skills. And especially for inferential reasoning, the results were impressive.

According to Pribis, "We discovered that students who consumed walnuts experienced improvement in critical thinking, specifically inferential reasoning." They actually found that eating a half cup of walnuts a day for eight weeks led to an 11.2 percent increase in inferential reasoning skills, which is the difference between an A or a B, or a B and a C.

According to the researchers, walnuts contain a wide number of neuroprotective compounds including vitamin E, folate, melatonin, polyphenolics, and significant amounts of a-linolenic acid, or ALA. Because ALA is the precursor for EPA and DHA, with plenty of ALA our bodies can make more EPA and DHA too.

The researchers also tell us that DHA is important for brain membrane stability, brain plasticity, and gene expression. Further, DHA increases the speed of brain signal transmissions while increasing serotonin and dopamine concentrations. Serotonin and dopamine are essential for brain and mood health and many brain medications manipulate these natural compounds.

Walnuts are also key sources of omega three fatty acids and most American diets lack these important fatty acids. Actually, the brain is almost 60 percent comprised of the structural fats that are found in walnuts.

Walnuts, like many other nuts, are great sources of protein too and they can be key replacements for animal eating. With benefits like these and other recent news that plant based vegetarian diets can prevent or reverse a variety of serious illnesses, it really seems the way to go.

More:
http://journals.cambridge.org/walnuts
http://newhope360.com/news/walnuts-boost-cog...
http://www.thebrainhealth.com/walnut-benefit...
http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~lds05bs/Infer...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/234...

About the author

Kim Evans is a natural health writer and author of Cleaning Up! The Ultimate Body Cleanse. Cleaning Up! offers deep cleansing and using methods in this book, people have gotten rid of dozens of different types of health problems, as well as just losing excess weight, thinking more clearly, and feeling better.

Kim's next book chronicles events in her life that happen to match patterns in the Bible. She's also found three places in the Bible that tell us its about these patterns and even asking you to match them.
Here's a little from the upcoming book...
In Isaiah 22:20, it says, "And it must occur in that day that I will call my servant, namely Eliakim." But, because these prophecies are cryptic and they aren't meant to be understood until they are understood, it's only the last three letters.
A few lines later, it says, "From the land of Kittim it has been revealed to them."
Here, you just take out any three middle letters, and again, it's the name of the person bringing you this message, or the sacred secret of the prophecy. Actually, if you take those two passages, Kim is about the only name you can get from both of them.
In Numbers 1:1 – 1:18, it's talking about "the family" and mentions Pagiel. It also twice mentions February 1st, (Kim's birthday) and then says that the youngest is 20 years old. Kim's little sister Paige is currently 20 years old.
In Chronicles 1 11:20 it mentions the brother of Joab and then in the same sentence uses the word brandishing. Kim's middle name is Jo and her older sister's name is Brandi. There are other patterns to her sisters too but these sort of mention them by name.
Of course, it helps if you know that there is a magical spiritual reality available that comes deep cleansing and often major dietary upgrades. It's also why Jesus was teaching the same thing, if you find his teachings in the Essene Gospel of Peace. In this text, he even says things like, "You'll never see the father unless you clean your colon." But, this is paraphrased...
In the Bible Jesus says things more like, happy are those who wash their robes, as they can enter the tree of life. The tree of life is elsewhere explained as God's paradise. He also said, first clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will also be clean.
Kim's book Cleaning Up! is here http://www.cleaningupcleanse.com. You can also preorder The Sacred Prophecies Have Been Fulfilled
here. It shouldn't be long.