Dr. Michael Greger

Maybe the people who are eating nuts are health nuts,

And maybe, you know, nut eaters are working out more.

Maybe they have other, eating other healthy stuff.

Maybe instead of, instead, what's the other thing you're eating instead of nuts?

Maybe you're snacking on some real, some potato chips, right?

Right?

And so maybe it's the benefit.

It's not so much the nuts, but you're not eating potato chips, right?

So there's all these confounding factors.

Now there are statistical methods that you can use to try to control for that.

So you're basically,

comparing nut eaters who aren't smoking and exercise, blah, blah, blah, to nut eaters, the non-nut eaters that also don't smoke.

And that's why you need this big number.

And so like the NIH AARP study, the largest study in history, we're talking over a half million people.

And so with that much data, you can crunch the numbers and really kind of tease out, wait a second,

With all these other factors controlled for, the people who are eating this many nuts are living this much longer.

That's pretty crazy.

And then you can turn to the most powerful evidence we have, which are interventional trials, where you randomize people to two groups, and you give them a smoothie, one with nuts and one flavored with nuts, but no actual nuts in it.

So you make people, you know, a walnut-flavored smoothie versus an actual walnut smoothie.

And neither the researcher nor the experimental subjects actually knows which is which.