Home Nutrition 12 Potential Health Benefits of Avocado

12 Potential Health Benefits of Avocado

by Gauri Kolhe

Avocado is unique fruit originated in southern Mexico and Colombia around 7000 years ago. By the years of 16th century this fruit was shared by Aztecs and Indicas with Spanish conquistadors. They named the fruit as “aguacate”. 

Later English colonies gave the nickname “alligator pears” due to its scale like skin and pear like skin. Due to the assimilation and high culture at present there are about 80 Californian varieties are popular all over the world.

Californian avocado website explained that due to fleshy pulp and large single seed botanically avocado considered as berry. Most of the fruit are consists carbohydrate on primarily level, avocado is rich with healthy fats.

Here are 12 health benefits of avocado that are supported by scientific research.

1. Good source of nutrition:

Avocado is main ingredient of very popular guacamole and popular for its nutrition value, good flavor and rich texture.

Avocado provides you a numbers of nutrients which helps you to keep healthy. According to NCBI (national center for biotechnological information), 68 grams of avocado contains  

  • Calories 114
  • Dietary fiber 6 g
  • Total sugar 0.2 g
  • Potassium 345 milligrams (mg)
  • Sodium 5.5 mg
  • Magnesium 19.5 mg
  • Vitamin A 43 micrograms (μg)
  • Vitamin E 1.3 mg
  • Vitamin K 14 μg
  • Vitamin B-6 0.2 mg
  • Monounsaturated fatty acids 6.7 g 

It also contains small amounts of magnesium, manganese, copper, iron, zinc, phosphorous and vitamins A, B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin) and B3 (niacin). Avocado oil contains monosaturated fatty acids that are good for health and keep your heart healthy.

2. Avocado gives you more potassium than bananas:

Enough amount of potassium is needed to promote healthy heart contraction and reduces blood pressure. Having avocado regularly decreases the risk of heart failure, kidney failure and strokes.

An average 4.7 gm of potassium is daily recommendation for an adult which is equal to two smaller bananas or one and half of large banana.

3. Avocado is packed with monosaturated fatty acids:  

Unlike other fruits avocado is enriched high fat fruit. As a matter of fact, 77% of energy comes from the fatty portion of avocado which makes it the fattiest plant food. 

Oleic acid, monosaturated fatty acids is the major component of avocado like olive oil. Oleic acid known to helps you in reducing inflammation and it may be effect genes linked with cancer.

4. Avocado gives you a lot of fiber:

With the abundance if monosaturated fats avocado is also enriched with fiber and known for a good source of fiber. Having lots of fiber makes your digestion better by providing feeding to friendly bacteria in your gut.

Fibers contribute to reduce the risk of heart diseases, type 2 diabetes and obesity.  On other hand it also helps you to lose weight. A 25 % of fiber is soluble in nature while remaining 75% is insoluble.

5. Having Avocados helps you in Lowering Cholesterol and Triglyceride Levels:  

In the numerous benefits of avocado lowering the cholesterol and triglyceride is included.

Heart diseases are one of the causes of death all over the world.

Several risk of heart disease includes the cholesterol, inflammatory markers, triglyceride and blood pressure. Various studies have been carried out in order to confirm the benefits of avocado.           

 Some studies results are shown that avocado reduces cholesterol level, LDL cholesterol by up to 22%, reduce triglycerides by up to 20%. Avocado significantly increases HDL (high density lipid).  

6. Avocado gives you some benefits to you beauty: 

Avocado is rich with vitamin C which is good antioxidant and tends to scavenge free radicals and reduce inflammation. Vitamin C promotes wound healing and soothes dry skin. Avocado oil may helps to boost collagen production and followed reduction in sign of aging.

7. Fat content of avocado helps in absorption:

Whenever you eat anything, it gives you nutrient. But only intake of nutrient is not enough to keep you healthy, absorption of nutrient is essential for health benefits.

Among the nutrient some nutrients needs fat to get absorb into the body. Fats present in the avocado helps in the absorption of nutrient make them utilized by body.

According to a study avocado oil increases the absorption of antioxidants. In other words avocado increase the nutrient value of other food from plant origin.

8. One of the benefits of avocado includes maintaining eye health:  

Avocado not only increases the absorption of antioxidants, they also a rich source of antioxidant themselves.

Avocado is packed with carotenoids, zeaxanthin and lutein which are surprisingly beneficial for eyes.  

Some studies show that these antioxidants help to reduce cataracts and macular degeneration. Therefore regular consumption of avocado keeps your eye healthy.

9. Avocado May Helps in Prevention of Cancers:   

There are not more evidences that avocado is beneficial in cancer prevention and treatment but a study show that avocado extract helps to prevent prostate cancer.

Some studies suggest that avocado may helps in reducing the effects of chemotherapy in human lymphocytes.

However these studies were carried out in isolated human cells so it is not that reliable and more research is needed in human subjects.

10. Avocado Extract seems to relieve arthritis symptoms:  

Arthritis is very common medical condition in western countries. Generally arthritis is medical condition associated with stiffness and joint pain. There are many types of arthritis.

Multiple studies show that avocado and soybean oil extracts my helps in reducing the symptoms of osteoarthritis. But individual effects of avocado in arthritis are remaining too studied.

11.  Avocado may help you to lose weight:

As avocado is full of fiber nutrients and monosaturated fatty acids it helps you to promote digestion and metabolism. There is much evidence saying avocado helps in losing weight.  

Eating avocado makes you feel full. In a small study published in Biomed central, a 28 percent reduction in hunger reported in 26 overweight adults and increase in satisfaction by 23 % reported after having half of avocado in their daily diet.

Involvement of avocado in your daily diet makes you naturally eat fewer calories. Avocados are full of fiber and have low amount of carbohydrates so it helps promote weight loss.

12. One of the benefits of avocado is delicious taste and incorporation:  

Apart from the above health benefits of avocado, this is very delicious and easy to incorporate in many types of food. Due to its delicious taste you can add them in salads or you can simply scoop out with the spoon ant instantly eat it.

Avocado has a good creamy, fatty, rich texture. Guacamole which is popular worldwide due to its taste and texture is nearly impossible to make without this.

Ways to consume avocado

  • Concerning all the benefits, here are some ways to have avocado
  • Prepare guacamole by putting together salt, garlic lime juice and avocado.
  • In the morning take a toast and spread avocado on it.
  • Toss avocado with the salads
  • Blend some fruits and avocado together, make smoothie and sip it up
  • Have some avocado icecream which is popular in the Brazil
  • If you are living in the Philippines, pureed avocado milk is quite popular.

You may also like