Improve health with avocado – Research
Health conscious Kiwis and foodies alike now have even more reason to celebrate the arrival of the New Zealand avocado season – latest research proves they can make a vast improvement to overall health and well being.
As well as being a delicious addition to many meals, avocados are one of the most nutritionally complete foods in the world and new international research published in the Nutrition Journal shows that people who regularly eat them weigh 3.4 kilograms less on average and have waistlines around four centimetres smaller, than those who don’t.
Avocado consumers also have significantly lower BMIs than non-consumers; significantly higher intakes of important nutrients (such as fibre, vitamin E, magnesium, potassium and vitamin K), plus more good fats and a lower intake of added sugars.
The findings of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in the United States, published in the Nutrition Journal, proved eating avocado every day boosted people’s HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels and resulted in a 50 per cent less chance of metabolic syndrome (a group of risk factors that occur together and increase the risk for coronary artery disease, stroke, and type-2 diabetes).