Eating one avocado a day may lower heart disease risk
News
One avocado a day may quietly lower heart disease risk by reducing artery damaging LDL particles in the blood.
– A daily avocado may help lower heart disease risk in adults with obesity by reducing the number of LDL particles circulating in the blood. After six months, participants who ate an avocado each day experienced a decline associated with an estimated 4% reduction in cardiovascular risk.
Eating one avocado each day may modestly reduce heart disease risk in adults with obesity, according to new research led by scientists in the Penn State Department of Nutritional Sciences. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology.
Details
The researchers found that daily avocado consumption was linked to a lower concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles in the blood. These particles carry cholesterol throughout the body. The size of the reduction was associated with an estimated 4% decrease in heart disease risk.
“If people want to improve the quality of their diet, making one small change might be a more feasible strategy than attempting to change their entire diet,” said Janhavi Damani, postdoctoral scholar at Penn State and first author of the study. “For people with obesity, including avocados in their daily diet might be a good starting place.”
LDL Particle Count Can Reveal Hidden Heart Risk
Analysis
LDL particles are not the same measurement as LDL cholesterol, often called “bad cholesterol.” Both are associated with cardiovascular disease, but particle concentration can reveal risk that a standard cholesterol test may not show. The researchers noted that this risk is often greater in people with abdominal obesity.
LDL cholesterol cannot travel through the bloodstream on its own. It must be carried by protein particles. A person with more LDL carrying particles may face a greater risk of heart disease, even when their total amount of LDL cholesterol is the same as someone with fewer particles.
“Imagine two people with the same high levels of LDL cholesterol,” Damani said. “Person A carries their cholesterol in fewer, larger LDL particles, and Person B carries their cholesterol in more, smaller LDL particles. Person B’s heart disease risk would be higher because their overall particle count is higher even though a test of their LDL cholesterol would look identical.”
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