IJCS | Volume 32, Nº2, May/June 2019

206 1. Barker DJ, Martyn CN, Osmond C, Hales CN, Fall CH. Growth in utero and serum cholesterol concentrations in adult life. BMJ. 1993,307(6918):1524-7. 2. Li X, Zhang M, Pan X, Xu Z, Sun M. “Three Hits" hypothesis for developmental origins of health and diseases in view of cardiovascular abnormalities. Birth Defects Res. 2017;109(10):744-57. 3. Fardet A, Boirie Y. Associations between food and beverage groups and major diet-related chronicdiseases: an exhaustive review of pooled/ meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Nutr Rev. 2014;72(12):741-62. 4. Quintanilha BJ, Reis BZ, Duarte GBS, Cozzolino SMF, Rogero MM. Nutrimiromics: role of microRNAs and nutrition in modulating inflammation and chronic diseases. Nutrients. 2017;9(11):pii:E1168. 5. L ă c ă tu ș u CM, Grigorescu ED, Floria M, Onofriescu A, Mihai BM. The Mediterranean Diet: from an environment-driven food culture to an emerging medical prescription. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019;16(6):pii:E942. 6. Bruins MJ, Van Dael P, Eggersdorfer M. The role of nutrients in reducing the risk for noncommunicable diseases during aging. Nutrients. 2019;11(1):pii:E85. 7. Jacobs DR Jr. What comes first: the food or the nutrient? Executive summary of a symposium, J Nutr. 2014;144(4 Suppl):543S-546S. 8. Boaz NT. Evolving health: the origins of illness and how the modern world is making us sick. New York: Wiley & Sons; 2002. 9. Silva ACT, Cardozo LFMF, Cruz BO, Mafra D, Stockler-Pinto MB. Nuts and cardiovascular diseases: focus on Brazil nuts. Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019 Apr 01; [Epub ahead of print]. 10. Garcia-Aloy M, Hulshof PJM, Estruel-Amades S, Osté MCJ, Lankinen M, Geleijnse JM, et al. Biomarkers of food intake for nuts and vegetable oils: an extensive literature search. Genes Nutr. 2019;14(7):1-21. References Figueiredo Brazil nuts and cardiovascular health Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(3)205-206 Editorial markers (decrease IL-6, TNF-alfa and Nf-kB) in different human populations such as adults, normolipidemic subjects, healthy volunteers, obese adolescents and women, aswell as dialysis, hypertensive anddyslipidemic patients. 9 Silva et al. 9 did not only revise the effects of nuts on cardiovascular diseases but also highlightedBrazil nuts in terms of their source of unsaturated fatty acids, proteins, fibers, minerals, vitamins, phenolic compounds and properties, biological effects, andproposedmechanisms of action. 9 They also discussed promising research directions for the future to identify additional health-related benefits of dietary Brazil nuts against cardiovascular diseases. Recently, Garcia-Aloy et al., 10 demonstrated that some nuts and vegetables oils are sources of fatty acids, micronutrients and phytochemicals that can be found in blood circulation and in urine according to their intake, and useful to determine habitual intake of nuts as wells as their derived metabolites. 10 Thus, it is important to evaluate the specificity, sensitivity, dose-response relationships, and determine the relationship with cardiovascular diseases. In conclusion, it is known that dietary intervention based on the use of foods with functional properties, especially Brazil nuts, can be considered a good strategy to prevent, treat or reduce the progression of cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In my opinion, more studies are necessary to elucidate which cellular mechanisms are involved in the nutritional route of the body metabolism and gene expression of this bioactive compounds and its impact on the cardiovascular health. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License