Study: Avocados May Help Cut Cholesterol

Eating avocados may help improve cholesterol levels, a small study suggests. The study included 45 overweight or obese adults. For 2 weeks, everyone ate an assigned “average American diet.” Then they ate 3 other diets, one after the other, for 5 weeks each. Which diet each person followed first was randomly chosen. The low-fat diet contained about 24% fat. Another diet contained about 34% fat. This included one small Hass-type avocado each day. The third diet was similar. However, it contained other plant fats to replace the avocado. These plant fats replaced some of the saturated fat in the “American” diet. After people completed each diet, researchers tested their blood cholesterol levels. After the avocado diet, LDL (“bad cholesterol”) dropped 10%. LDL dropped 5.8% with the moderate-fat, no-avocado diet and 5.3% with the low-fat diet.