Nuts: the demure yet dynamic dynamos at nature's table. Might it be true, friends, that eating nuts will actually cause you to not die? Yes. It is absolutely true. Science celebrates The Nut!

The New England Journal of Medicine has published an extensive new study reviewing and documenting lots of very verified and insightful medical data. I won't bore you with the details, which I have perused myself, and which—rest assured—meet my personal standards of accuracy. The Boston Globe sums it up:

The study, published Wednesday in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, involved more than 118,000 healthy volunteers and found that those who regularly consumed a one-ounce daily serving of walnuts, almonds, cashews or other tree nuts had a 20 percent lower risk of dying from any cause during the three-decade long study compared to those who did not eat nuts.

Nut eaters were 25 percent less likely to die from heart disease, 10 percent less likely to die from cancer, and 20 percent less likely to die from diabetes as well as lung diseases. The study found that nut eaters enjoyed longer lifespans even if they did not exercise, avoided fruits and vegetables, and were overweight.

Let me put this medical mumbo-jumbo in terms that the average person can understand: you drop whatever it is you're holding in your hand right now, even if it is an infant, and you go and fill those hands with your choice of delicious nuts, and you eat those god damn nuts as if your life depended on it, because it does.

HAIKU IN HONOR OF THIS BLESSED NUT MILESTONE

"If I may ask, doc—

Even the humble goober?"

"Yes, friend. Even those."

[Photo: Flickr]