Cholesterol Disaster or Heart Saver?

Everyone loves this trendy fruit. It has been praised as a superfood that’s good for your heart and overall health and can aid in weight loss.

But it’s also rich in carbohydrates, extremely rich in fats, and massively high in calories, so can it possibly be healthy?

This was the question a team of researchers from five different American universities put to the test in a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Previous studies have shown that eating avocado can reduce body weight and waist circumference, but they were very small with very few subjects.

The scientists recruited 1,008 volunteers for their 6-month study, all of whom had an elevated waist circumference. These individuals were chosen as participants because they were already at risk of high cholesterol and obesity.

The researchers split the participants into two groups. One group had to eat one avocado every day, while the other group was told not to consume more than two avocados per month. Other than that, both groups were asked to stick to their normal diets.

Before and after the study, the researchers measured the participants’ waist circumference, body mass index score, and cholesterol. In addition, they used MRI scans to measure the amount of fat in and around their abdominal organs.

This is what they found:

1. Abdominal fat, including liver fat, remained the same in the avocado-consuming group.

2. Avocado had no effect on body weight, waist circumference, inflammatory markers, or insulin.

3. The unhealthy (LDL) cholesterol was lower in the avocado group when compared with the normal diet group.

4. In general, the avocado group ate a healthier diet than the normal diet group.

On the whole, the findings are mixed.

On the positive side, avocado does not make us put on weight or fat, and it can reduce our cholesterol. This is quite remarkable, considering that it is such a high-fat, high-calorie food.

On the more disappointing side, avocados cannot serve as a treatment for something like metabolic syndrome or diabetes because they don’t reduce body weight, abdominal fat, blood fat content, insulin, or inflammatory markers.

So, if you want to get your cholesterol under control and clear out your arteries, instead of eating avocados, you should cut out this ONE ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…