Ditch your everyday snack for pecans and your heart will thank you. (SherSor/Shutterstock)
Study shows eating pecans instead of junk food boosts heart health
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Looking for a simple way to boost your heart health? Try reaching for pecans instead of chips or cookies for your afternoon snack. A recent Penn State University study reveals that this straightforward swap can lower your cholesterol and boost your overall diet quality, both key factors for a healthier heart.
While many nuts get attention for their health benefits, pecans—those buttery, sweet nuts famous for their role in pie—haven’t been studied as thoroughly as almonds or walnuts. Penn State researchers set out to change that by examining how eating pecans daily affects people who are at risk for heart problems. The study, funded by the American Pecan Council and published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, aimed to provide practical insights for improving heart health through dietary changes.
The research team recruited 138 adults who had at least one risk factor for metabolic syndrome. This includes things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess belly fat, or off-kilter cholesterol levels that raise your chances of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
Half the participants ate about two ounces of pecans (a handful) daily instead of their regular snacks, while the other half kept eating whatever they normally would. The study ran for 12 weeks.
“Replacing typical snacks with pecans improved key risk factors for heart disease including blood cholesterol levels and diet quality,” says study author Kristina Petersen from Penn State, in a statement. “These results add to the evidence supporting the cardiovascular benefits of nuts and offer new insights into how adults can incorporate nuts into their diet.”
Instead of asking people to add pecans on top of everything else they ate, researchers had them substitute pecans for snacks they’d normally eat.
Better Numbers, Better Diet
After 12 weeks, people in the pecan group saw their cholesterol numbers improve significantly compared to the control group:
- Total cholesterol dropped by about 8 points
- LDL (bad) cholesterol decreased by about 7 points
- Blood fats called triglycerides fell by 16 points
These changes may seem modest, but they can translate to meaningful reductions in heart disease risk over time.
Beyond cholesterol improvements, the pecan eaters dramatically upgraded their overall diet quality. Using a measure called the Healthy Eating Index-2020, which tracks how well someone’s diet follows official U.S. dietary guidelines, the pecan group improved their score by about 9 points. By the study’s end, their diet quality was 17% higher than the comparison group.
Why such improvement? It’s both what the pecans brought to the table and what they pushed off it. Regular snacks like chips and cookies pack refined carbs, added sugars, and unhealthy fats. Pecans, meanwhile, deliver heart-healthy fats, fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and beneficial plant compounds.
The pecan group also started eating more plant proteins and seafood, both typically lacking in American diets. Most changes happened by week six and remained stable thereafter.
The Fine Print
Not all findings were positive. Despite instructions to replace rather than add snacks, the pecan eaters gained about 1.5 pounds over 12 weeks, while the control group’s weight held steady. This likely occurred because pecans pack a lot of calories, about 200 in a handful, and participants probably didn’t completely replace their usual snacks.
Eating pecans didn’t improve blood vessel function as researchers had anticipated. Earlier studies suggested nuts might help blood vessels work better, but this particular research didn’t show those benefits.
The research team noted that pecans contain plant compounds that may support healthy blood vessel function. Though this study didn’t find differences in blood vessel health between groups, they still recommend eating more foods rich in these compounds like pecans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to support heart health.
A Small Change Worth Making
Despite these limitations, the cholesterol and diet quality improvements stand out, especially given how simple the change was. No calorie counting, no complicated diet rules, just swapping one snack for another.
Americans get roughly 20% of their daily calories from snacks, many of which offer little nutritional value. If more people made this kind of swap, the public health benefits could add up.
The bottom line? Pecans can be part of a heart-healthy eating pattern, particularly when they replace less nutritious snack options. If you’re concerned about cholesterol or want to improve your diet, try replacing your usual snack with a small handful of pecans. Just watch your portion size to avoid unwanted weight gain.
Paper Summary
Methodology
This randomized controlled trial involved 138 adults with at least one metabolic syndrome risk factor. Participants were randomly assigned to either eat 57g (2oz) of pecans daily instead of their usual snacks or continue their regular diet for 12 weeks. Researchers collected data at baseline, 6 weeks, and 12 weeks, including blood tests, vascular health measurements, and detailed dietary information from nine 24-hour food recalls.
Results
The pecan group experienced significant reductions in total cholesterol (-8.1 mg/dL), LDL cholesterol (-7.2 mg/dL), and triglycerides (-16.4 mg/dL) compared to the control group. Diet quality, measured by the Healthy Eating Index-2020, improved by 9.4 points, making it 17% higher than the control group at study end. The pecan group also consumed more heart-healthy fats, fiber, and plant compounds, while reducing carbohydrate intake. However, they gained about 1.5 pounds on average, and no improvements in blood vessel function were observed.
Limitations
The study relied on self-reported dietary data, which can be unreliable. The participants had higher-than-expected baseline blood vessel function, potentially making improvements harder to detect. The weight gain in the pecan group suggests incomplete energy substitution—participants likely didn’t fully replace the calories from their usual snacks with pecans.
Discussion and Takeaways
This study demonstrates that even simple dietary changes can yield meaningful health benefits. The improvements in cholesterol and diet quality are particularly noteworthy given the straightforward nature of the intervention. The results support current dietary recommendations to include nuts as part of a heart-healthy eating pattern. For consumers, replacing typical snacks with pecans offers a practical way to improve cardiovascular risk factors, though portion control is important to manage weight.
Funding and Disclosures
This research was funded by the American Pecan Council and supported by the Clinical Research Center at Penn State and the National Institutes of Health. Two researchers (Kristina Petersen and Penny Kris-Etherton) received the grant from the American Pecan Council, while the third author (Tricia Hart) reported no conflicts of interest. The researchers stated that the funding source had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, or manuscript preparation.
Publication Information
Published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in January 2025, this study titled “Consuming pecans as a snack improves lipids/lipoproteins and diet quality compared with usual diet in adults at increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases: a randomized controlled trial” was conducted at Pennsylvania State University from August 2022 through March 2024 and registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT05071807.
