Gallstones are the most common condition that affects the gallbladder, and are therefore also widespread in the general population. It is already well-known that nuts contain many elements that have a positive impact on your health. Therefore, the objective of this present study was to investigate whether consuming nuts (peanuts, peanut butter and other nuts) helps to prevent gallstones. Here, the correlation between consuming nuts and operations to remove gallstones was investigated in detail in a large group of women. This is because removing the gallbladder is often the only option to permanently prevent painful episodes of colic for sufferers of gallstones. The data come from the Nurses’ Health Study, the most renowned longitudinal study of health, from the USA. It has been running for 30 years. 212,700 nurses took part in the study. They were questioned on their health and diet every two years.

The present study investigated the data of 80,718 women from the Nurses’ Health Study who were aged between 30 and 55 in the year 1980 and did not have any gallstones at that point. The data were evaluated up to the year 2000. The results: 7,831 gallbladder removal operations were documented in this group between 1980 and 2000. After adjusting for age and other known or suspected risk factors, the researchers found that women who ate at least 143 g of nuts per week had a lower risk of gallbladder removal in comparison to women who rarely or never ate nuts. In analyses that studied how consumption of peanuts fared against consuming other nuts, both of these factors were found to correlate positively with a lower risk of gallbladder removal. Summary: If women eat peanuts, peanut butter or other nuts frequently, then they probably have a lower risk of getting gallstones.