Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, Tony Soprano's sidekick, was always frantically worried about his health. Clearly, he had no idea that his nickname was a fountain of youth!

Turns out, eating 2 ounces of shelled walnuts a day can make your blood vessels more flexible (a sign of heart health), improve your cholesterol levels and help with high blood pressure, glucose control and insulin regulation.

In short: It can make you healthier, happier and protect your heart, brain, sex life, kidneys and that youthful glow on your skin!

But walnuts aren't the only nuts that have turned out to help you achieve youthfulness! One mega-study that looked at results from 25 clinical trials found that eating around 2.4 ounces of nuts daily lowers total cholesterol by 5 percent, heart-and blood-vessel-damaging low-density lipoprotein by more than 7 percent and improves the ratio of LDL to heart-friendly high-density lipoprotein by 8 percent. Triglyceride levels declined by more than 10 percent for folks who started out at 150 or higher.

The studies included macadamia, pistachio, hazelnuts or peanuts (not really nuts; they're legumes), but not Brazil or pine nuts. So here's the scoop on these tasty morsels:

-2-3 ounces of pistachios a day lowers total cholesterol levels (from around 210 mg/dL) by slashing LDL and raising HDL after only a month.

-Eating almonds daily preserves HDL levels while lowering lousy LDL by up to 19 percent.

-A handful of hazelnuts daily may slash your risk for heart disease and may help protect you from some cancers and dementia.

© 2013 Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.