The impact of increased daily peanut consumption on indices of peripheral and cerebral vascular function in non-Hispanic Black individuals

Cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive conditions, and cerebral vascular diseases including cognitive impairment, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias disproportionately impact the Non-Hispanic Black (BL) population. The mechanisms are multifactorial but is related to reduced vascular function/health. Our lab, and others, have demonstrated that reduced nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability secondary to oxidative stress, systemic inflammation, and reduced L-arginine bioavailability contributes to reduced vascular function/health in this population. Increased dietary peanut consumption improves various physiological outcomes including blood pressure, cholesterol, type II diabetes, cognitive health, NO bioavailability, and vascular function/health. This improvement is related to increased bioavailability of L-arginine, reduced systemic inflammation, and antioxidant capacity. This study hypothesized that increased daily peanut consumption would improve indices of peripheral and cerebral vascular function/health in a cohort of BL individuals. Methods: Seventeen people participated (11 non-Hispanic White (WH) and 6 BL (age: WH 25±8, BL 21±2; BMI: WH 23±3, BL 22 ± 4; p>0.05 for both). Measures were made before (pre) and after (post) 56 days of daily lightly salted peanut consumption (2 oz/day for females and 3 oz/day for males). Peripheral macro and microvascular function/health was assessed as brachial artery vasodilation (flow mediated dilation, %FMD) and forearm reactive hyperemia (peak mean forearm blood velocity (FBVmean) respectively following 5-min of suprasystolic cuff inflation. Cerebral vascular function/health was assessed as the cerebral vasodilator response during a hypercapnic challenge, i.e., the slope of % cerebral vascular conductance index (CVCi) relative to the change in end-tidal carbon dioxide concentration (ΔPETCO2). Results: There was no effect of race on peripheral macrovascular function assessed as %FMD (WH: 5.3 ±0.89, BL: 6.3 ±1.9 %, p=0.31) or peripheral microvascular function assessed as FBVmean (WH: 82.90 ± 4.5, BL: 72 ± 6.7 cm·s−1, p=0.13). Likewise, there no effect of treatment on %FMD (Pre: 5.4 ± 0.7, Post: 6.2 ± 2.1 %, p=0.46) or FBVmean (Pre: 81.4 ± 6.7, Post: 73.4 ± 8.8 cm·s−1, p=0.27). Lastly, there were no effect of race (WH: 4.0 ± 0.36, BL: 3.9 ± 0.6 %, p=0.85) or treatment (Pre: 3.9 ± 0.56, Post: 4.0 ± 0.39 %, p=0.79) on cerebral vascular function assessed as %CVCi during hypercapnia. Conclusion: The preliminary data suggest that 56 days of increased daily peanut consumption does not induce measurable improvements in indices of vascular function in a cohort of relatively young BL individuals. Future work will continue to assess this effect in a larger cohort of individuals as well as in individuals with existing conditions or diseases (i.e., hypertension, type II diabetes, etc.). Funding: Peanut Institute (982307). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.