The three diets elicited comparable changes in the volunteers' LDL cholesterol concentrations, Spiller's group reported in the June Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Work by Paul A. Davis at the University of California, Davis suggests it might have had something to do with how the fat was packaged. Some people move the fat that they eat into their blood a little faster than normal and out of the blood much more slowly than is typical. As a result, their fats circulate longer in the blood. The timing of almond oil's absorption and processing proved no different from that of any other oil, Davis says.
College sees no lipid advantage in consuming monounsaturates in nuts rather than as oil.
At the Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco last April, she described data from a 6-month cholesterol trial of five different diets. Twenty-two men and women, ages 21 to 54, spent 4 weeks on each diet. A 1-week break separated each experimental diet from the next. To ensure compliance, all meals during the experimental phases were provided at the university in portions tailored to maintain an individual's weight. David Curb of the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu observed a similar trend in his trial comparing diets rich in macadamia nuts to the typical American diet or one developed to meet low-fat guidelines.