How to Cure Cancer and Other Illness? Eat an Ounce of Nuts a Day

Preventing cancer and other illnesses could never be as easy as this: simply eat an ounce of peanuts a day. A new study reveals that a handful of peanuts could keep cancer and other diseases at bay, according to NBC News .

Published on the New England Journal of Medicine, the study presented solid evidence that eating an ounce of peanuts gives people 20% mortality improvement - a huge advantage and a striking benefit for the health.

This life-saving information was explored by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard, wherein 119,000 case studies were examined by researchers for a period of 30 years. The results showed that men and women who have included nuts in their diet every day were 20 percent more likely to live longer than those who never ate nuts, according to ABC News.

With an ounce of nuts in one's diet, people can effectively reduce the risks of dying from heart diseases by 29%, and the risk of dying from cancer by 11%. It doesn't matter which type of peanuts one consumes, either; whether patients choose pistachios over almonds, or walnuts over other tree nuts. It also doesn't matter how this portable food had been prepared; patients may eat them oiled or salted, raw or roasted.

Aside from heart diseases and cancer, stroke and respiratory illnesses may also be prevented by just eating a handful of this accessible staple, making nuts a wonder food.

Authors of the study also negate the assumption that eating nuts could cause people to be overweight. Dr. Ying Bao of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston says, "There's a general perception that if you eat more nuts you're going to get fat. Our results show the opposite," she told ABC News.

However, other experts are quick to caution that studies like these are only observational in nature, and that they could never prove cause and effect, but only suggest a correlation. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as determining whether respondents of the study ate the nuts on salads, suggesting that vegetables may have played a large role in preventing diseases.

It is worth noting however, that earlier studies also showed that eating nuts and its other derivatives (such as peanut butter) prevent diseases like breast cancer and cardiac illnesses, reports the Chicago Tribune.