Eating this fruit every day leads to better sleep, heart health: new research

An avocado a day keeps the doctor away.

New research has found that eating an avocado every day is linked to health benefits, including improved sleep and diet quality.

“We know from previous work that avocado intake is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease,” Penn State University postdoctoral researcher Dr. Janhavi J. Damani, who was involved in the study.

The research, recently presented at the Nutrition 2024 conference in Chicago, builds on past studies examining the health benefits of avocados, suggesting that avocados may “improve cardiovascular risk factors by reducing total cholesterol and LDL-C without adversely affecting weight bodily”. to Damani.

For the current study, the research team conducted an analysis of the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial (HAT), which included more than 1,000 participants who were randomly selected to either consume an avocado per day for 6 months or follow their typical diet, but eat less than two per month.

In their analysis, Daman’s team evaluated the impact of daily avocado consumption on the heart health of people with abdominal obesity, according to Healio.

Using the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 – a guide to cardiovascular health – the team assessed a sample of 969 people from HAT on diet quality, blood glucose, blood pressure, BMI, blood lipids, physical activity and heart health. sleep, which play a role. in cardiovascular health.

They found that cardiovascular health outcomes decreased in those who maintained their lifestyle and abstained from avocado consumption, while this “trend was not observed in the avocado-supplemented group,” Damani told Healio.

While there was no significant difference in LE8 scores between the groups, people who consumed avocados on a daily basis saw an improvement in their scores for sleep health, diet quality and blood lipids, such as cholesterol.

“There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that, more than just the inclusion of individual foods, there is a drive to adapt healthy dietary patterns to achieve clinically meaningful improvements in cardiovascular risk factors,” Damani said.

The study, which was funded by the Hass Avocado Board, could potentially spur further research into the “complex relationships” between certain foods and cardiovascular health.

Meanwhile, she told Healio that providers should “put more emphasis on increasing diet quality through beneficial changes in the overall dietary pattern.”