A systematic review and meta-analysis of almond effect on C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 in adults

Hariri M, Amirkalali B, Baradaran HR, Gholami A · Complementary Therapies in Medicine · 2023 March

DOI 10.1016/j.ctim.2022.102911

Objective

A broad search strategy was designed and more accurate inclusion and exclusion criteria were considered to identify all randomized clinical trials (RCTs) which assessed the effect of almond on CRP and IL-6 levels.

Conclusions

The overall findings of this study support the beneficial effect of almond consumption on serum concentration of IL-6; but even so, our study revealed that the almond consumption non-significantly reduced the serum concentration of CRP. However, it seems that the almond significantly reduced the serum concentration of CRP in studies on at-risk / unhealthy populations.

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Insights

Almond consumption can significantly reduce the serum concentration of the inflammatory mediator, Interleukin-6, in adults but no significant effect is found on C-reactive protein.

The methodology of this study involved running an electronic search for English-language studies across several databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, SCOPUS, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Cochrane library without any time restrictions. The effect sizes on serum concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) were calculated based on the mean changes of both intervention and control groups. Assessment of the overall effects and their heterogeneity was done using the DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model. To examine the statistical heterogeneity, Cochran's Q test and I-squared statistic were utilized. With respect to the results, among the eleven studies involved, it was observed that almond consumption did not significantly affect serum CRP level. However, a significant decrease in serum IL-6 level was reported with almond consumption. Thus, reflecting the beneficial effects of almonds with regard to reducing the serum concentration of IL-6. The results derived for serum CRP were not substantial enough to be considered significant.