Industry-funded study of the week: almonds and sleep

Charles Platkin of the Center for Food as Medicine & Longevity sent me this gem.

His summary: Eating almonds improved how people rated their sleep, but most objective sleep measures did not change…Almonds are nutritious, but this is not proof they treat insomnia.

The study: Desai SR, Pinto L, Halbe A, Vaidya RA, Udipi SA and Kalita S (2026) Effects of almond consumption on sleep quality in adults: a randomized controlled trial. Front. Nutr. 13:1892442. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2026.1892442

Method: 175 adults with sleep problems were randomized to eat almonds or another snack for 5 months.

Results: Those eating almonds reported improvements in sleep quality and melatonin levels were higher.  But no significant treatment effects were observed for most parameters and there were no significant differences observed for other biochemical or anthropometric outcomes.  The almond eaters felt that they slept better.

Conclusion: “Almond consumption was associated with improvements in subjective sleep efficiency and sleep continuity in adults with poor sleep quality. These findings suggest that almonds may enhance perceived sleep quality, with slight objective improvements among responders.”

Funding: The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This clinical trial was supported by Almonds Board of California.

Comment: This study is a classic instance of industry-influenced interpretation bias.  It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would think 50 almonds a day (350 calories!) would help anyone sleep and they didn’t.  But the conclusions put a positive spin on the results.

As placebos go, I’ll take almonds any day.  I like them.  But sleep?