Macadamias - Beneficial Foods
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- From Australian Rainforest to Hawaiian Orchards
- The Tree and Its Species
- Nutritional Profile
- Monounsaturated Fat, Palmitoleic Acid and Very Little Omega-6
- Heart Health and Cholesterol
- Palmitoleic Acid and Metabolic Health
- Oil, Plant Compounds and Oxidative Stability
- Macadamias and Body Weight
- Manganese, Thiamine and Copper
- Buying, Storing and Roasting
- Amounts Used in Trials
- Who the Research Raises Concerns For
- Connections
- Key Research Papers
- Featured Videos
Introduction
The macadamia is the richest and butteriest of the common nuts. Weighed against almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts and peanuts in the USDA food composition database, raw macadamias carry the most fat (about 76 g per 100 g) and the least protein (about 8 g per 100 g). Almost four-fifths of that fat is monounsaturated — the same family of fat that dominates olive oil and avocado — and the nut contains almost no omega-6 linoleic acid at all.
Macadamias are also unusual in carrying a large amount of palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturated fat that is rare in most foods. That single feature has drawn a good deal of laboratory interest, some of it enthusiastic. The human evidence is much thinner, and this page keeps the two apart.
The clinical research on macadamias themselves is small: a handful of feeding trials, the largest of which enrolled 35 people. Those trials, the larger body of research on nuts and on monounsaturated fat in general, and the animal and cell studies on macadamia oil are all reported below, each labelled for what it is. Three topics have their own deep-dive articles under Macadamia Benefits.
From Australian Rainforest to Hawaiian Orchards
Macadamias are native to a narrow strip of subtropical rainforest in eastern Australia. According to the history published by the Macadamia Conservation Trust, the wild trees are recorded from around present-day Lismore in northern New South Wales to Mt Bauple north of Gympie in southeast Queensland, mostly in isolated pockets at the fringes of rainforest near the first inland ranges from the Pacific.
Aboriginal food long before European description
Aboriginal peoples of the region knew and harvested the nut for a very long time. The Trust's history describes it as a treasured but minor food, collected mainly by women from trees at the forest edge, husked and cracked between stones, sometimes roasted in the ashes, carried as a non-perishable food and traded between groups. It records Aboriginal names including Kendal (more correctly something like gyndnl), Goomburra and Boomberra. Australian Geographic adds that groups in northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland gathered to feast on the nut and used its oil as a base for liniment and face and body paint, and that later settlers called it the bauple nut, Queensland nut or bush nut.
The naming
The botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, working with Walter Hill of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, collected specimens in 1857 and described and named the genus Macadamia in 1858, after John Macadam, Secretary of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria. The first specimens described were of the bitter, inedible species. The Trust's history tells how Hill later found a young assistant eating the larger nuts he had been told were probably poisonous; when the boy stayed well, Hill tasted them himself and became the nut's first promoter. He planted the first cultivated macadamia in the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens in 1858.
Hawaii takes it commercial
Small Australian orchards existed by 1900, but native insect pests and little horticultural knowledge held the crop back. Seeds reached Hawaii from the late 1870s and through the 1880s, at first for reforestation, botanic gardens and as windbreaks on sugarcane land. In 1893 nuts collected from two trees at Pimpama, in the Gold Coast hinterland, were planted in a large Honolulu garden, and nuts from those trees were used to establish the first Hawaiian orchard. Hawaiian researchers mastered grafting and the crop's processing, Australian Geographic reports about 1,000 hectares under macadamias in Hawaii by 1938, and US troops passing through Hawaii in the Second World War spread the nut's reputation.
Hawaiian grafted varieties became the base plantings of the Australian and global industries from the 1960s. Hawaii led world production until the 1980s; Australian production overtook it from 1997. Macadamias are now also grown in South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, China, Brazil and Central America, yet the Trust notes that they still make up less than 2% of the world's tree-nut production.
The wild trees have not fared as well. The same history estimates that at least 80% of the original habitat of wild macadamias has been lost to clearing, burning and development, including more than 99% of the “Big Scrub” rainforest of northern New South Wales.
The Tree and Its Species
Macadamias belong to Proteaceae, the family of Australian banksias and grevilleas — not to the families of almonds, walnuts or cashews. Four species are recognised today, and only two are eaten:
- Macadamia integrifolia — the smooth-shelled macadamia, Queensland nut or Bauple nut. Three leaves to each node, cream flowers, smooth shells. It is the main commercial species worldwide.
- Macadamia tetraphylla — the rough-shelled macadamia or bush nut. Usually four leaves to each node, pink flowers, a rough shell and a slightly sweeter kernel. It is planted on a smaller scale, and hybrids with M. integrifolia are common.
- Macadamia ternifolia — the Maroochy or Gympie nut, a small tree with intensely bitter kernels that are not eaten.
- Macadamia jansenii — the Bulburin nut, described in 1991 from about 60 trees in a single rainforest gully; listed as endangered.
(Species descriptions from the Macadamia Conservation Trust, which also notes that for almost a century botanists confused the species, so older papers sometimes call the commercial nut M. ternifolia.)
The kernel sits inside one of the hardest shells of any nut, which is why macadamias are almost always sold already shelled. Growing conditions matter to what ends up in the kernel: a 2025 review from an Australian state agriculture research institute describes how the timing and volume of rain before harvest, and conditions during harvest and storage, affect kernel oil content and quality (Rogiers 2025). A South African study of nuts from eight sites found manganese in the kernel varied more than twenty-fold, from about 10 to 216 micrograms per gram, depending on where the trees grew, while toxic arsenic and chromium stayed low (Moodley 2007).
Nutritional Profile
The figures below are for raw macadamia nuts from the USDA FoodData Central record “Nuts, macadamia nuts, raw” (FDC 170178). The 1 oz (28 g) column is the 100 g value multiplied by 0.28. Daily Value (DV) shares are for adults, using the current US label reference amounts.
Energy and macronutrients
| Component | Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | 718 kcal | 201 kcal | The highest of the common nuts compared on this page |
| Water | 1.4 g | 0.4 g | Very dry kernel |
| Protein | 7.9 g | 2.2 g | The lowest of the common nuts compared |
| Total fat | 75.8 g | 21.2 g | The highest of the common nuts compared |
| Monounsaturated | 58.9 g | 16.5 g | About 78% of total fat |
| Oleic acid (18:1) | 43.8 g | 12.3 g | The main fat of olive oil |
| Palmitoleic acid (16:1) | 13.0 g | 3.6 g | Unusually high; see below |
| Saturated | 12.1 g | 3.4 g | Mainly palmitic acid (6.0 g per 100 g) |
| Polyunsaturated | 1.5 g | 0.4 g | Linoleic (omega-6) 1.3 g, alpha-linolenic (omega-3) 0.2 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 13.8 g | 3.9 g | Starch only about 1 g |
| Dietary fiber | 8.6 g | 2.4 g | About 31% DV per 100 g |
| Sugars | 4.6 g | 1.3 g | Almost all sucrose |
| Phytosterols | 116 mg | 32 mg | Mostly beta-sitosterol (108 mg per 100 g) |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg | 0 mg | Plant food |
Minerals
| Mineral | Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | Share of DV per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manganese | 4.13 mg | 1.16 mg | ~180% |
| Copper | 0.76 mg | 0.21 mg | ~84% |
| Magnesium | 130 mg | 36 mg | ~31% |
| Iron | 3.69 mg | 1.03 mg | ~20% |
| Phosphorus | 188 mg | 53 mg | ~15% |
| Zinc | 1.3 mg | 0.36 mg | ~12% |
| Potassium | 368 mg | 103 mg | ~8% |
| Calcium | 85 mg | 24 mg | ~7% |
| Selenium | 3.6 mcg | 1.0 mcg | ~7% |
| Sodium | 5 mg | 1.4 mg | Raw, unsalted |
Vitamins
| Vitamin | Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | Share of DV per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thiamine (B1) | 1.20 mg | 0.33 mg | ~100% |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.28 mg | 0.08 mg | ~16% |
| Niacin (B3) | 2.47 mg | 0.69 mg | ~15% |
| Pantothenic acid (B5) | 0.76 mg | 0.21 mg | ~15% |
| Riboflavin (B2) | 0.16 mg | 0.05 mg | ~12% |
| Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) | 0.54 mg | 0.15 mg | ~4% |
| Folate | 11 mcg | 3 mcg | ~3% |
How macadamias compare with other nuts
Per 100 g of the raw or dried nut in the same USDA database:
| Nut | Total fat | Protein | Monounsaturated | Linoleic acid (omega-6) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macadamias | 75.8 g | 7.9 g | 58.9 g | 1.3 g |
| Pecans | 72.0 g | 9.2 g | 40.8 g | 20.6 g |
| Brazil nuts | 67.1 g | 14.3 g | 23.9 g | 24.4 g |
| Walnuts | 65.2 g | 15.2 g | 8.9 g | 38.1 g |
| Hazelnuts | 60.8 g | 15.0 g | 45.7 g | 7.8 g |
| Almonds | 49.9 g | 21.2 g | 31.6 g | 12.3 g |
| Peanuts | 49.2 g | 25.8 g | 24.4 g | 15.6 g |
| Pistachios | 45.3 g | 20.2 g | 23.3 g | 14.1 g |
| Cashews | 43.9 g | 18.2 g | 23.8 g | 7.8 g |
Two things stand out. Macadamias have the most monounsaturated fat and by far the least omega-6 of any nut in the table. And their protein is not only low in amount but low in lysine (0.018 g per 100 g in the USDA record), so macadamias contribute little to protein needs compared with peanuts, almonds or pistachios.
Monounsaturated Fat, Palmitoleic Acid and Very Little Omega-6
A fatty acid is the basic building block of a fat. “Monounsaturated” means the carbon chain has one double bond; “polyunsaturated” means it has two or more. Each double bond is a spot where oxygen can attack, so the more polyunsaturated fat a food has, the faster it tends to go rancid.
Macadamia fat is built almost entirely from three kinds of fatty acid:
- Oleic acid (18 carbons, one double bond) — about 44 g per 100 g of nut. This is the same fatty acid that makes up most of olive oil and avocado fat.
- Palmitoleic acid (16 carbons, one double bond, also written 16:1 n-7) — about 13 g per 100 g, or roughly 18% of the fatty acids. An Irish analysis of five nuts reported “substantial levels” of palmitoleic acid in macadamia, unlike walnuts, almonds, peanuts and hazelnuts (Maguire 2004). Most foods contain only traces.
- Saturated fats — about 12 g per 100 g, mostly palmitic and stearic acid, with smaller amounts of the longer arachidic and behenic acids.
What macadamias almost lack is polyunsaturated fat: 1.3 g of omega-6 linoleic acid and 0.2 g of omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid per 100 g, against 38 g and 9 g in walnuts. That has two consequences. It makes macadamia fat chemically stable (see the oil section below), and it means macadamias are not a meaningful source of the essential omega-3 or omega-6 fats. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is about 6 to 1, but the absolute amounts of both are tiny.
Heart Health and Cholesterol
Three small trials reviewed for this page tested macadamia nuts on blood cholesterol (the FDA's 2017 review of a macadamia health claim weighed five, including two older ones; see the heart-health deep-dive). Their size and design matter more than usual here, because there are so few.
- Australia, 2003. Seventeen men with high cholesterol (average age 54) ate 40–90 g of macadamias a day, about 15% of their energy, for 4 weeks. Blood was measured before and after; the abstract describes no separate control group. Total cholesterol fell 3.0%, LDL cholesterol fell 5.3% and HDL cholesterol rose 7.9%, with no change in triglycerides or homocysteine. Plasma levels of palmitoleic and related monounsaturated fats rose (Garg 2003).
- United States, 2008. A randomised crossover controlled-feeding study gave 25 adults with mildly raised cholesterol (15 women, 10 men) two diets for 5 weeks each, all food supplied. Both diets were 33% fat; the macadamia diet included 42.5 g (1.5 oz) of nuts per 2,100 kcal and had less saturated and more monounsaturated fat than the “average American diet” comparison. Total cholesterol was 4.94 versus 5.45 mmol/L and LDL 3.14 versus 3.44 mmol/L after the macadamia diet; non-HDL cholesterol and the cholesterol ratios were also lower, and triglycerides did not change (Griel 2008).
- United States, 2023. A randomised crossover trial in 35 adults with abdominal obesity added macadamias (about 15% of daily calories) to their usual free-living diet for 8 weeks, compared with 8 weeks of their usual diet without nuts. Total cholesterol fell 2.1% and LDL 4%, but neither change was statistically significant. Lipid lowering was greater in participants with overweight than with obesity (Jones 2023).
Put together: in two of three small trials macadamias lowered LDL cholesterol modestly, and in the most recent trial the change was in the same direction but too small to rule out chance. The trial with the clearest result was the one in which the whole diet was controlled and the nuts replaced saturated fat.
The wider evidence on nuts and monounsaturated fat
Nut trials in general point the same way. An updated 2025 meta-analysis of 113 randomised trials in 8,060 adults, at a median of 45.5 g of nuts a day, found moderate reductions in total cholesterol (−0.14 mmol/L) and LDL cholesterol (−0.12 mmol/L) and small reductions in triglycerides and apolipoprotein B, with no effect on HDL; the certainty was rated moderate to low for most outcomes (Nishi 2025). A 2023 meta-analysis of 139 tree-nut and peanut trials reported similar lipid reductions but rated the certainty for LDL as “very low” because of inconsistency and likely publication bias (Houston 2023). A 2020 network meta-analysis comparing individual nuts did not include macadamias at all, because there were too few trials (Liu 2020).
On the fat itself, a 1995 meta-analysis of 14 diet studies found that replacing saturated fat with either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated oil lowered total and LDL cholesterol by a similar amount, about 0.65 mmol/L, and that the two unsaturated fats did not differ from each other on LDL or HDL (Gardner 1995). A 2019 meta-analysis of 14 trials found high-monounsaturated diets did not lower blood pressure more than high-carbohydrate diets (Jovanovski 2019). And in a large 2014 meta-analysis of observational studies, people eating the most monounsaturated fat did not have a lower rate of coronary disease than those eating the least (relative risk 0.99) (Chowdhury 2014). No trial has measured heart attacks or strokes in people eating macadamias.
The full trial-by-trial account is in Macadamias: Heart Health and Monounsaturated Fats.
Palmitoleic Acid and Metabolic Health
Palmitoleic acid is the reason macadamias appear so often in metabolic research. The human body makes most of its own palmitoleic acid from palmitic acid, using an enzyme called stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1, and fat tissue releases it into the blood. Research in mice led scientists to call it a “lipokine” — a fat that acts like a hormone, signalling between fat tissue and distant organs (Frigolet 2017).
What the human research shows — and it is mostly not about macadamias
- Observational studies point both ways. In 1,234 non-diabetic Europeans followed for 3 years, higher blood palmitoleic acid was linked with better insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance after adjustment for body fat (Tricò 2020). But in 24 overweight adults, palmitoleic acid in blood fats tracked with higher liver fat, higher fat production in the liver and greater fat-tissue insulin resistance, and the authors proposed it as a marker of fatty liver (Lee 2015). Much of the palmitoleic acid in blood is made by the body, so blood levels partly reflect metabolism rather than diet.
- Reviews call the picture mixed. A 2017 review described mixed cardiovascular effects and inconsistent links with obesity and fatty liver (Frigolet 2017). Another 2017 review noted that human studies linking palmitoleic acid with better insulin sensitivity mostly concern the trans form found in dairy fat, while the data on the cis form — the form in macadamias — “are still controversial” (Nunes 2017).
- One feeding trial found it behaved like saturated fat on LDL. In 1994, 34 men with high cholesterol ate three diets in random order for 3 weeks each, adding palmitic, palmitoleic or oleic acid. LDL cholesterol was similar with palmitoleic and palmitic acid and higher than with oleic acid; HDL was lower with palmitoleic acid. The authors concluded that palmitoleic acid “behaves like a saturated and not a monounsaturated fatty acid” in its effect on LDL (Nestel 1994).
- A controlled trial of pure palmitoleic acid is under way. A published protocol describes a randomised placebo-controlled trial of purified palmitoleic acid in adults with prediabetes and overweight or obesity; the protocol paper reports no results (Cetin 2023).
Animal and cell studies of macadamia oil
- In mice on a high-fat diet, macadamia oil given by stomach tube for 12 weeks reduced fat-cell enlargement and inflammation in fat tissue and immune cells (Lima 2014).
- In liver cells in culture and in mice on a high-fat diet, macadamia oil lowered fat accumulation and blood cholesterol and triglycerides and raised antioxidant enzymes; the authors link this to AMPK and Nrf2 signalling (Shuai 2023; Zhang 2024).
- Not every mouse study was positive. When macadamia oil replaced soybean oil in a high-fat diet for 14 days, it made no difference to blood glucose, and the mice gained as much body weight and body fat as on soybean oil; linseed oil did better (Barrena 2014).
None of these animal findings has been tested in people eating macadamia nuts. The details are in Macadamias: Palmitoleic Acid and Metabolic Health.
Oil, Plant Compounds and Oxidative Stability
Because macadamia fat is overwhelmingly monounsaturated and saturated, with almost no polyunsaturated fat, it has few of the double bonds that oxygen attacks first. Chemically, that leaves macadamia fat with far fewer vulnerable sites than walnut, pecan or Brazil-nut fat.
The minor compounds in the oil have been measured too:
- Phytosterols — plant compounds with a structure similar to cholesterol. USDA lists 116 mg per 100 g, almost all beta-sitosterol. An Irish analysis of five nuts found beta-sitosterol the most abundant sterol in every nut oil tested (Maguire 2004).
- Squalene — a fat-soluble compound best known from olive oil and shark liver. The same analysis found squalene in all five nuts, at 9.4 to 186.4 micrograms per gram of oil across the set (Maguire 2004).
- Tocopherols and tocotrienols — the two families of vitamin E compounds, grouped in nut chemistry as tocochromanols (Maestri 2024). The USDA record lists only 0.54 mg of alpha-tocopherol per 100 g, about 4% of the Daily Value, so macadamias are a poor source of vitamin E. USDA lists no tocotrienol values for macadamias, and the deep-dive explains why no reliable figure could be confirmed.
The health effects of macadamia oil itself are known only from the animal and cell studies described above; no human trial in the evidence reviewed here tested the oil as food over weeks. A single test meal of macadamia nut oil, providing 72% of its energy as monounsaturated fat, was used in a Danish study of 17 relatives of people with type 2 diabetes and 17 controls; blood fats, insulin and gut hormones after the meal did not differ between the two groups (Pietraszek 2014).
More in Macadamias: Oil, Tocotrienols and Oxidative Stability.
Macadamias and Body Weight
At about 200 kcal per ounce, macadamias are the most calorie-dense common nut, so a natural question is whether eating them every day adds weight. The one macadamia trial that measured this directly found it did not: in the 2023 crossover trial, 35 adults with abdominal obesity who added macadamias (about 15% of their daily calories) to their usual diet for 8 weeks showed no significant change in weight, BMI, waist circumference or body fat percentage compared with 8 weeks without nuts, measured by bioelectrical impedance (Jones 2023). Their total fat and monounsaturated fat intake rose while saturated fat intake did not change.
A 16-week trial in 29 adults with overweight or obesity compared 42.5 g a day of mixed nuts, which included macadamias among eight nut types, with an equal-calorie portion of pretzels. LDL cholesterol and lipoprotein(a) did not differ between groups, but the nut group had lower body fat percentage and diastolic blood pressure and higher adiponectin, without a change in body weight (Nora 2023). These are small, short studies, and the second does not isolate macadamias.
Manganese, Thiamine and Copper
Beyond fat, macadamias are a dense source of three micronutrients in the USDA record:
- Manganese — 4.1 mg per 100 g, about 1.2 mg per ounce. Manganese is a cofactor for enzymes in bone formation, carbohydrate metabolism and the mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme manganese superoxide dismutase. As noted above, the amount in the kernel can vary widely with the soil the tree grew in (Moodley 2007).
- Thiamine (vitamin B1) — 1.2 mg per 100 g, around a full day's Daily Value, and about a third of it per ounce. Thiamine is needed to turn carbohydrate into energy.
- Copper — 0.76 mg per 100 g, about 84% of the Daily Value. Copper is used in iron handling, connective tissue and several antioxidant enzymes.
Macadamias also supply moderate magnesium and iron, and fibre at about 2.4 g per ounce. They are low in vitamin E, folate and selenium.
Buying, Storing and Roasting
Because the shell is so hard, most macadamias are sold shelled, as whole kernels, halves or pieces, raw or roasted, salted or plain.
Rancidity is the oxidation of fat; food scientists measure its early stage as the “peroxide value”. Freshly ground macadamias in the Irish five-nut analysis had low peroxide values, in the same range as the other nuts (Maguire 2004). Macadamias' low polyunsaturated fat gives them an advantage here, but kernels still age: the 2025 Australian review lists conditions during harvest and storage among the factors that affect kernel quality (Rogiers 2025). Warmth, light and air speed the oxidation of any nut fat.
Roasting changes the kernel. A South African study roasted two commercial cultivars for 15 minutes at 50, 75, 100, 125 and 150 °C. Kernels roasted at the lower temperatures kept more phenols and antioxidant activity but also more moisture and higher peroxide values, and scored poorly for taste. At 150 °C the kernels were over-browned and bitter, with high peroxide values. Roasting at 125 °C gave lower peroxide values, a crisp texture and good flavour while keeping considerable phenols and flavonoids (Aruwajoye 2023).
In the kitchen macadamias are eaten as a snack, chopped into baking, ground into nut butters and plant-based “milks” and creams, and pressed for cooking oil. Salted and honey-roasted products add sodium or sugar that the raw nut does not have.
Amounts Used in Trials
No health authority sets a specific amount for macadamias. The amounts below are what researchers gave in the studies reported on this page.
| Study | Who | Amount | Length | Main finding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garg 2003 | 17 men with high cholesterol | 40–90 g a day (~15% of energy) | 4 weeks | LDL −5.3%, HDL +7.9% (before/after) |
| Griel 2008 | 25 adults, mildly high cholesterol | 42.5 g (1.5 oz) per 2,100 kcal | 5 weeks per diet | Lower total and LDL cholesterol than the comparison diet |
| Jones 2023 | 35 adults with abdominal obesity | ~15% of daily calories | 8 weeks per period | Non-significant LDL −4%; no weight gain |
| Nora 2023 | 29 adults, overweight/obesity | 42.5 g mixed nuts a day (macadamia one of eight) | 16 weeks | No LDL change; lower body fat % |
For a sense of scale, 42.5 g of macadamias is about 305 kcal, and the median nut dose across the 113 trials in the 2025 meta-analysis was 45.5 g a day (Nishi 2025). In the cholesterol trials the nuts largely replaced other fats in the diet rather than being added on top of an unchanged diet, except in the 2023 free-living trial.
Who the Research Raises Concerns For
People with tree-nut allergy
Macadamia is one of the tree nuts covered by the term “tree-nut allergy”. A 2021 review describes tree-nut allergy as usually starting in childhood and, unlike many food allergies, rarely fading, and lists it among the main causes of fatal allergic reactions in children and adults (Kuźmiński 2021). Macadamia allergy is less common than walnut, cashew or hazelnut allergy (Roux 2003), and fewer of its allergenic proteins have been identified, which limits allergy testing based on individual proteins (Geiselhart 2018). A 2024 systematic review describes the standard of care for tree-nut allergy as strict exclusion of the culprit nut plus treatment of accidental reactions, with oral immunotherapy the most studied way of reducing the risk from accidental exposure (Pasioti 2024). More at Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis.
Calorie density
At about 200 kcal per ounce and 718 kcal per 100 g, macadamias are the most energy-dense common nut. The one macadamia trial that measured body weight found no gain over 8 weeks (Jones 2023), but the cholesterol benefits in the trials appeared when the nuts replaced other fats, and studies did not test large amounts eaten on top of an unchanged diet over long periods.
Palmitoleic acid and LDL
For people tracking LDL cholesterol closely, the 1994 feeding trial in which palmitoleic acid raised LDL as much as palmitic acid is worth knowing about (Nestel 1994). Whole macadamias still lowered LDL compared with a higher-saturated-fat diet in the controlled-feeding trial (Griel 2008).
Dogs
Macadamia nuts are a documented cause of poisoning in dogs. A US animal poison-control centre reviewed 29 cases over 5 years: signs included weakness, depression, vomiting, unsteadiness, tremor, raised body temperature, abdominal pain, lameness and stiffness, usually starting within 12 hours and lasting under 24 hours. The estimated average amount eaten was 11.7 g per kg of body weight. Four dogs given 20 g per kg experimentally developed weakness and could not rise 12 hours later. The mechanism is unknown, and all field and experimental dogs recovered within 1 to 2 days (Hansen 2000). Veterinary reviews list macadamias with chocolate, grapes and raisins, onions and garlic and xylitol among household foods reported to poison dogs (Cortinovis 2016).
Decisions about diet in the setting of an allergy, a lipid disorder or a pet's poisoning belong with a clinician or veterinarian.
Connections
- Nuts — every nut on the site
- Macadamia Benefits — the deep-dive hub
- Heart Health and Monounsaturated Fats
- Palmitoleic Acid and Metabolic Health
- Oil, Tocotrienols and Oxidative Stability
- Nut Benefits — what the research says across all nuts
- Pecans — the next-richest nut in fat
- Hazelnuts — the other oleic-rich nut
- Avocado: Monounsaturated Fats
- Olive Oil — the best-studied oleic-acid food
- Manganese — about 180% DV per 100 g
- Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)
- Tocotrienols
- Lipid Panel — the test the trials measured
- Cholesterol Management
- Insulin Resistance
- Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
- Food Allergy
Key Research Papers
- Garg ML, Blake RJ, Wills RB. Macadamia nut consumption lowers plasma total and LDL cholesterol levels in hypercholesterolemic men. The Journal of nutrition. 2003;133(4):1060-3. PubMed PMID: 12672919
- Griel AE, Cao Y, Bagshaw DD, et al. A macadamia nut-rich diet reduces total and LDL-cholesterol in mildly hypercholesterolemic men and women. The Journal of nutrition. 2008;138(4):761-7. PubMed PMID: 18356332
- Jones JL, Sabaté J, Heskey C, et al. Macadamia nut effects on cardiometabolic risk factors: a randomised trial. Journal of nutritional science. 2023;12:e55. PubMed PMID: 37180485
- Nestel P, Clifton P, Noakes M. Effects of increasing dietary palmitoleic acid compared with palmitic and oleic acids on plasma lipids of hypercholesterolemic men. Journal of lipid research. 1994;35(4):656-62. PubMed PMID: 8006520
- Nora CL, Zhang L, Castro RJ, et al. Effects of mixed nut consumption on LDL cholesterol, lipoprotein(a), and other cardiometabolic risk factors in overweight and obese adults. Nutrition, metabolism, and cardiovascular diseases : NMCD. 2023;33(8):1529-1538. PubMed PMID: 37263914
- Pietraszek A, Gregersen S, Pedersen SB, et al. Acute effects of monounsaturated fat on postprandial lipemia and gene expression in first-degree relatives of subjects with type 2 diabetes. European journal of clinical nutrition. 2014;68(9):1022-8. PubMed PMID: 24824014
- Nishi SK, Paz-Graniel I, Ni J, et al. Effect of nut consumption on blood lipids: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutrition, metabolism, and cardiovascular diseases : NMCD. 2025;35(5):103771. PubMed PMID: 39638677
- Houston L, Probst YC, Chandra Singh M, et al. Tree Nut and Peanut Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.). 2023;14(5):1029-1049. PubMed PMID: 37149262
- Liu K, Hui S, Wang B, et al. Comparative effects of different types of tree nut consumption on blood lipids: a network meta-analysis of clinical trials. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2020;111(1):219-227. PubMed PMID: 31773150
- Gardner CD, Kraemer HC. Monounsaturated versus polyunsaturated dietary fat and serum lipids. A meta-analysis. Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology. 1995;15(11):1917-27. PubMed PMID: 7583572
- Jovanovski E, de Castro Ruiz Marques A, Li D, et al. Effect of high-carbohydrate or high-monounsaturated fatty acid diets on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutrition reviews. 2019;77(1):19-31. PubMed PMID: 30165599
- Chowdhury R, Warnakula S, Kunutsor S, et al. Association of dietary, circulating, and supplement fatty acids with coronary risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of internal medicine. 2014;160(6):398-406. PubMed PMID: 24723079
- Frigolet ME, Gutiérrez-Aguilar R. The Role of the Novel Lipokine Palmitoleic Acid in Health and Disease. Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.). 2017;8(1):173S-181S. PubMed PMID: 28096141
- Nunes EA, Rafacho A. Implications of Palmitoleic Acid (Palmitoleate) On Glucose Homeostasis, Insulin Resistance and Diabetes. Current drug targets. 2017;18(6):619-628. PubMed PMID: 26648072
- Tricò D, Mengozzi A, Nesti L, et al. Circulating palmitoleic acid is an independent determinant of insulin sensitivity, beta cell function and glucose tolerance in non-diabetic individuals: a longitudinal analysis. Diabetologia. 2020;63(1):206-218. PubMed PMID: 31676981
- Lee JJ, Lambert JE, Hovhannisyan Y, et al. Palmitoleic acid is elevated in fatty liver disease and reflects hepatic lipogenesis. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 2015;101(1):34-43. PubMed PMID: 25527748
- Cetin E, Pedersen B, Porter LM, et al. Protocol for a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial using pure palmitoleic acid to ameliorate insulin resistance and lipogenesis in overweight and obese subjects with prediabetes. Frontiers in endocrinology. 2023;14:1306528. PubMed PMID: 38313838
- Lima EA, Silveira LS, Masi LN, et al. Macadamia oil supplementation attenuates inflammation and adipocyte hypertrophy in obese mice. Mediators of inflammation. 2014;2014:870634. PubMed PMID: 25332517
- Shuai X, Dai T, McClements DJ, et al. Hypolipidemic effects of macadamia oil are related to AMPK activation and oxidative stress relief: In vitro and in vivo studies. Food research international (Ottawa, Ont.). 2023;168:112772. PubMed PMID: 37120222
- Zhang M, Zhang Y, Li L, et al. Macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia) Oil Prevents High-Fat Diet-Induced Lipid Accumulation and Oxidative Stress by Activating the AMPK/Nrf2 Pathway. Foods (Basel, Switzerland). 2024;13(22):3672. PubMed PMID: 39594087
- Barrena HC, Schiavon FP, Cararra MA, et al. Effect of linseed oil and macadamia oil on metabolic changes induced by high-fat diet in mice. Cell biochemistry and function. 2014;32(4):333-40. PubMed PMID: 24284975
- Maguire LS, O'Sullivan SM, Galvin K, et al. Fatty acid profile, tocopherol, squalene and phytosterol content of walnuts, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts and the macadamia nut. International journal of food sciences and nutrition. 2004;55(3):171-8. PubMed PMID: 15223592
- Maestri D. Groundnut and tree nuts: a comprehensive review on their lipid components, phytochemicals, and nutraceutical properties. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition. 2024;64(21):7426-7450. PubMed PMID: 39093582
- Aruwajoye NN, Buthelezi NMD, Mditshwa A, et al. Assessing the Impact of Roasting Temperatures on Biochemical and Sensory Quality of Macadamia Nuts (Macadamia integrifolia). Foods (Basel, Switzerland). 2023;12(11):2116. PubMed PMID: 37297359
- Rogiers SY, Quinlan KP, Bright JD. Challenges to optimal macadamia (Macadamia spp.) kernel quality in a changing climate. Functional plant biology : FPB. 2025;52:FP24218. PubMed PMID: 40163427
- Moodley R, Kindness A, Jonnalagadda SB. Chemical composition of edible Macadamia nuts (Macadamia integrifolia) and impact of soil quality. Journal of environmental science and health. Part A, Toxic/hazardous substances & environmental engineering. 2007;42(14):2097-104. PubMed PMID: 18074280
- Kuźmiński A, Przybyszewski M, Przybyszewska J, et al. Tree nut allergy. Postepy dermatologii i alergologii. 2021;38(4):544-549. PubMed PMID: 34658691
- Roux KH, Teuber SS, Sathe SK. Tree nut allergens. International archives of allergy and immunology. 2003;131(4):234-44. PubMed PMID: 12915766
- Geiselhart S, Hoffmann-Sommergruber K, Bublin M. Tree nut allergens. Molecular immunology. 2018;100:71-81. PubMed PMID: 29680588
- Pasioti M, Xepapadaki P, Mathioudakis AG, et al. Current options in the management of tree nut allergy: A systematic review and narrative synthesis. Pediatric allergy and immunology. 2024;35(5):e14132. PubMed PMID: 38727626
- Hansen SR, Buck WB, Meerdink G, et al. Weakness, tremors, and depression associated with macadamia nuts in dogs. Veterinary and human toxicology. 2000;42(1):18-21. PubMed PMID: 10670081
- Cortinovis C, Caloni F. Household Food Items Toxic to Dogs and Cats. Frontiers in veterinary science. 2016;3:26. PubMed PMID: 27047944