Eating modest amounts of legumes — peas, chickpeas, beans and lentils — appears to reduce levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol.
In a review of randomized clinical trials, researchers found that eating 4.5 ounces of cooked legumes — or about three-quarters of a cup — a day reduced LDL levels by about 5 percent compared to similar diets without them. Lowering LDL by that amount suggests a 5 percent to 6 percent reduction in heart attacks and other major cardiovascular events, the researchers write.
The analysis, published in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, covered 26 trials involving 1,037 volunteers, average age 51. The average duration of follow-up was six weeks.
The trials found no effect of legumes on other predictors of cardiovascular risk such as apolipoprotein B and non-HDL cholesterol (total cholesterol minus HDL or “good” cholesterol).
One of the report’s authors, Dr. John L. Sievenpiper, a researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, said the average American diet includes less than one ounce of legumes per day.
“There’s a great opportunity here because people are not consuming a lot of dietary pulse,” he said, using another term for legumes. “We have to think of this as one more way of lowering cholesterol and achieving cardiovascular benefit, something that is complementary to drugs.”