Health

Avocados are essentially the only fruit that contains healthy monounsaturated fats. Unlike unhealthy saturated or trans fats, the monounsaturated fats in avocados help to reduce ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol levels in your blood and raise your ‘good’ HDL cholesterol levels, which helps to break down and maintain the cholesterol in your bloodstream. According to research from the American Heart Association, when examining the baseline average American diet, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or so-called ‘bad cholesterol’, was 13.5 mg/dL lower after committing to a moderate fat diet that included avocados.

Health experts recommend replacing foods high in saturated fats such as meat, butter and cheese, with foods high in unsaturated fats, such as avocados. The American Heart Association recommends two servings of avocado a week to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, including strokes.  

A combination of nutrients and bioactive compounds in avocados may help reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome developing. This cluster of conditions increases your risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes due to high blood pressure and obesity.

Through several studies, reviewed by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the USA, it was found that avocados can lower the risk of becoming obese, even redistributing intra-abdominal fat in overweight women.

As a good source of dietary fibre, essential for regulating your appetite and maintaining your bowel health, the fibres in avocados can also act as probiotics.

This gives a boost to the beneficial bacteria in the intestines, and also helps to aid digestion. In fact, avocados contain 6.7 g of dietary fibre per 100g, higher than many fruits and vegetables including pears (3.1 g), bananas and broccoli (2.6 g).

Avocados can enhance the skin’s firmness thanks to the combination of monounsaturated fatty acids, carotenoids, vitamins (including vitamins C and E) and phenolic compounds.

A study, published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology in 2022, supports these findings.

Whether it’s the carotenoid lutein that helps protect the human eye against the sun’s ultraviolet light, or the raft of B vitamins to support brain health, cell growth, communication capacity and even disease resistance, avocados have it all.

Even the nutrition in half an avocado can offer a variety of amazing benefits in a balanced diet, containing 2.7 mg of B vitamins alone, many of which are linked to improving cognitive function.

Are avocados good for diabetes? Yes – containing very little sugar and with a low glycaemic index (GI), as well as healthy monounsaturated fats, avocados can help to improve insulin sensitivity and reduce type 2 diabetes risk.

A 2023 study in the USA found a direct link between avocado intake and lower rates of incident type 2 diabetes amongst adults with Hispanic/Latino ancestry with an increased risk of the disease.