What Happens to Your Sleep and Cholesterol When You Eat an Avocado Every Day
Benefit of eating an avocado daily: A new study shows that eating an avocado daily for six months improved diet quality, cholesterol levels, and sleep. The study found sleep benefits even though it was initially focused on heart health. Dietitians say foods like walnuts, tart cherry juice, and salmon offer similar health benefits. Eating an avocado every day for six months was linked to better sleep, improved cholesterol, and higher diet quality, according to a recent study.
How Might Eating Avocados Daily Benefit Your Health?
The six-month study, funded by the Avocado Nutrition Center, included 969 U.S. adults with abdominal obesity who typically ate no more than two avocados per month.
One group ate an avocado every day, while the other stuck to two or fewer per month. Researchers didn’t ask either group to change anything else about their diet.
Researchers used a modified version of the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 score to measure heart health. A higher score indicates better cardiovascular health and reflects factors like diet, physical activity, and quality sleep.
The daily avocado didn’t boost the overall heart health score, but it did improve diet quality, sleep, and blood lipids.
Benefit of eating an avocado daily, Damani added that gradual and sustained changes in diet and lifestyle are needed to achieve “meaningful improvements” in cardiovascular health.
Can Avocados Help You Sleep Better?
Sleep health and duration improved for the study participants who ate an avocado each day.
“This was a cardiovascular health trial, making the sleep benefits more credible since they emerged as unexpected secondary findings in a well-designed randomized controlled trial,” John Saito, MD, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC).
Benefit of eating an avocado daily, Avocados aren’t sleep aids, but they contain sleep-supporting nutrients like magnesium, potassium, and healthy fats, Saito explained.
“Eating regular, balanced meals with a mix of healthy fats, complex carbs, and protein will help support your circadian rhythm,” Saito said.
How Avocados Support Heart Health
Avocados are a good source of “healthy” monounsaturated fats. Previous studies have shown that eating avocados, especially in place of saturated fats like butter and cheese, helps lower heart disease risk.
One avocado offers 10 grams of fiber, which can help lower cholesterol levels and heart disease risk.
Soluble fiber from avocado can form a gel that binds to bile acids and “bad” cholesterol in the small intestine, helping to remove them from the body, according to Judy Simon, MS, RDN, FAND, a clinical dietitian nutritionist at the UW Medical Center.
Too much LDL, or “bad cholesterol, can build up in your arteries and lead to chest pain or heart attacks.
How to Add Avocados to a Healthy Diet
Avocados can be part of a healthy, fiber-rich diet that supports sleep. But they may not be right for everyone, especially if you have dietary restrictions.
“One would not benefit from eating a daily avocado if they have an avocado allergy or are following a low potassium diet, a low FODMAP diet, or a very low-fat diet under the supervision of their health care provider,” Jamie Mok, MS, RD, a Los Angeles-based registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Benefit of eating an avocado daily, Mok added that other foods may offer similar health benefits, especially for sleep, including walnuts, tart cherry juice, oily fish like salmon, and some herbal teas, although more research is needed.
If you want to eat more avocados, try adding them to salad dressing, eggs, baked potatoes, smoothies, or sandwiches. But you don’t have to eat one every day or spend more than you can afford, Simon said.
“I don’t think one food can change the dial for everything,” Simon said.
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