If you’re wondering what you should be eating in order to keep cancer and stroke at bay, scientists may have an answer for you: a handful of nuts. The new study, which combines data from 20 prospective study, comapres people who ate the least nuts and those who ate the most, and found a huge difference between the health of the two groups.

People who ate the most nuts saw their risk for coronary heart disease by 29 percent, as well as a 21 percent drop in the risk for cardiovascular disease and 15 percent decrease in cancer risk compared to those who just weren’t interested in eating nuts, according to an Imperial College London statement.

In addition, nut-eaters had a 52 percent reduced risk for respiratory disease, a 39 percent cut in risk for diabetes, and were 75 percent less likely to get an infectious disease.

How much nuts are we talking about? The study indicates those who got the best risk reduction were eating about an ounce of nuts per day, certainly an amount most people could handle. Eating any more than that didn’t appear to show any extra benefits, researchers said.

Study co-author Dagfinn Aune from the School of Public Health at Imperial said: “In nutritional studies, so far much of the research has been on the big killers such as heart diseases, stroke and cancer, but now we’re starting to see data for other diseases.

“We found a consistent reduction in risk across many different diseases, which is a strong indication that there is a real underlying relationship between nut consumption and different health outcomes. It’s quite a substantial effect for such a small amount of food.”

Aune continued: “Some nuts, particularly walnuts and pecan nuts are also high in antioxidants, which can fight oxidative stress and possibly reduce cancer risk. Even though nuts are quite high in fat, they are also high in fibre and protein, and there is some evidence that suggests nuts might actually reduce your risk of obesity over time.”