The Avocado Can Beat Your Cholesterol And Heart Disease

Being full of healthy fats and other nutrients, the avocado can lower your cholestrol and heart disease. The research study was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, showing that the creamy fruit can function within weeks to bring down cholesterol.

The fruit contains plaque-busting monounsaturated fatty acids, and they work in the same way as foods do in a Mediterranean diet, said the scientists, according to today.com.

"In the past, we used to substitute carbohydrate for saturated fat, and that would result in a low-fat diet," said Penny Kris-Etherton, chair of the American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee and Professor of Nutrition at Pennsylvania State University.

"Now we're seeing that it's better for people to have good fats in their diet at the expense of saturated fat. And so the current message is to replace saturated fat with unsaturated fat, and in so doing, consume a moderate-fat diet, not too much, and also not too little," Kris-Etherton said.

The study was conducted on 45 Americans, who were all overweight, by Kris-Etherton and his team. The Americans had healthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

Avocados contain a lot of oleic acid, which is a healthy monounsaturated fat that boosts good cholesterol and lowers bad. Avocados are favored for its fiber content, as well as a plant chemical called beta-sitosterol, according to aarp.com.

It's difficult to test food in life, as meals are so varied. Yet the team controlled what everyone ate, and fed them carefully controlled diets. There were three different kinds of diet: a lower-fat diet without avocado, a moderate-fat diet without avocado, and finally the last diet that added one avocado per day to the moderate-fat diet.

The two moderate-fat diets were typically average American. There were a third of calories that was sourced from fat. The low-fat diets offered 24 percent of calories from fat.

After five weeks, it was discovered that though no one had lost weight, the LDL or "bad cholesterol" levels had changed.

"All diets decreased LDL cholesterol, the main lipid risk factor for cardiovascular disease. But the diet with the avocado decreased LDL cholesterol the most," Kris-Etherton said.

In their everyday meals, Americans have been told to keep total cholesterol below 200 and preferably below 180. LDL is preferable below 100.

It was the avocado-a-day diet that helped the volunteers seeing their LDL plummeting by more than 13 points, said Kris-Etherton's team in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

LDL was 8.3 points lower on the moderate-fat diet without the avocado and 7.4 points less on the lower-fat diet.

Apart from monounsaturated fats, the avocados contain fiber, phytosterols and polyphenols that can all help to bring down cholesterol. Avocados also contain natural sugars to help regulate blood sugar.

"We need to focus on getting people to eat a heart-healthy diet that includes avocados and other nutrient-rich food sources of better fats," Kris-Etherton said.

Although Americans may not be used to eating avocado, it is not a complicated addition.

However, in excess, avocado, like any other food, can have its minus points. Avocados are not low-calorie.

"One avocado has around 200 to 250 calories. So I would strongly urge people not to just add an avocado a day to their diet but they have to substitute nutrient-poor calories, which are so popular in the U.S. diet.," Kris-Etherton said.