Dear Healthy Friend,

They're a tasty way to beat a snack attack or add some crunch to a fresh salad. And they have the best omega-3/omega-6 fatty acid ratio. But there's another reason to enjoy walnuts - it turns out they may have the power to knock out high cholesterol.

Christine O'Brien reveals the facts...

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

Significantly lower cholesterol without a single drug
Christine O'Brien
Contributor to Nutrition & Healing

Scientists at Harvard recently took reviewed 13 studies and found that diets rich in walnuts could significantly lower cholesterol levels.

When compared with control diets, participants on the "walnut" diets enjoyed a significantly greater decrease in total cholesterol and in LDL - cholesterol concentrations.

There were 365 total participants in the 13 studies. The walnut-heavy diets lasted between four and 24 weeks, with walnuts making up 10-24% of total calories.

That might sound like a lot, but walnuts are pretty calorie-dense. Half a cup will get you to 15% (300 calories) of a 2,000-calorie diet.

The good stuff didn't stop with cholesterol, either. Other results showed that walnuts can help with inflammation and keep body weight in check.

Back in January, Christine O'Brien wrote about a way to make nuts an even healthier snack. You can read about it in the Health Bytes archive here.

So sprinkle them in your stir-fry or snack on them to help defeat high cholesterol.

Put your thyroid to the test

Q: I think I may be suffering from an underactive thyroid, but the test my doctor ran came back normal. Is there any other screening method that I can undergo as a "second opinion"?

Dr. Wright: The symptoms of an underactive thyroid (also known as hypothyroidism) include weight gain, fatigue, constipation, depression, sore muscles and extreme sensitivity to cold temperatures. But since these symptoms are ones that are relatively common and can indicate many other problems in the body, doctors now rely heavily on laboratory tests to officially diagnose cases of hypothyroidism.

These thyroid function tests usually measure thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH, produced by the pituitary gland) and thyroid hormone output (T3 and T4). But since thyroid hormones regulate many key functions of the body, levels in the blood do not always reflect what is going on in the tissues.

If you and your doctor have ruled out other potential causes of the symptoms you've been experiencing, ask him or her to measure your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which can better help assess thyroid function.