One Avocado A Day Helps Improve Cholesterol
Eating one avocado a day can significantly improve bad cholesterol levels in overweight and obese individuals, according to a study designed to test the effect of replacing saturated fatty acids with unsaturated fatty acids.
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Researchers identified 45 healthy, overweight or obese patients (aged 21-70) who were on an average American diet consisting of 34% calories from fat, 51% carbohydrates, and 16% protein. For the study, they were asked to sequenced through 3 different cholesterol-lowering diets for 5 weeks each: lower fat diet without avocado, moderate-fat diet with one Hass avocado (136 g) per day, and moderate-fat diet without avocado (high oleic acid oils were used to match the fatty acid content of one avocado).
Note: The 2 moderate fat diets provided 34% calories as fat and the lower fat diet provided 24% of calories as fat.
Researchers found that LDL (or the bad cholesterol) was 13.5 mg/dL lower with the moderate fat diet that included an avocado. In comparison, LDL was 8.3 mg/dL lower on the moderate fat diet without avocado and down 7.4 mg/dL on the lower fat diet.
Only the avocado diet significantly decreased LDL particle numbers, small dense LDL particle numbers, small dense LDL cholesterol, and the ratio of LDL/HDL from baseline.
“These measurements are all considered to be cardiometabolic risk factors in ways that are independent of the heart-healthy fatty acid effects,” said Penny M. Kris-Etherton, PhD, RD, senior study author and chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee.
—Pooja Shah
References:
1. American Heart Association. An avocado a day may help keep bad cholesterol at bay [press release]. January 7, 2015. http://newsroom.heart.org/news/an-avocado-a-day-may-help-keep-bad-cholesterol-at-bay?preview=bb74. Accessed January 7, 2015.
2. Wang L, Bordi P, Fleming J, et al. Effect of a moderate-fat diet with and without avocados on lipoprotein particle number, size and subclasses in overweight and obese adults: a randomized, controlled trial. J Am Heart Assoc. 2015;4:e001355.