Avocado 12 Proven Health Benefits | Side Effects | Facts

Avocado is very popular food among the fitness and nutrition enthusiast.

With a healthy dose of nutrients, it is known as a superfood. It has quite a high dose of carbohydrate and fat that is concerning many people.

But it should not be a concern as it is loaded with nutrients that provide many benefits. Those fat content of avocado makes it more unique and beneficial.

It can be enjoyed along with meal, salad or salsa.

So know the beneficial property of avocado with evidence.

1. Avocado Makes Every Food Healthier

Inflammation is the cause of many health problems arising in the modern world.

A healthy inflammation acts as immunity to fight against virus and bacteria.

But the problem arises with chronic (low grade) inflammation. Chronic inflammation arises with increased exposure to inflammatory compounds. It is our body response to the change in lifestyle, diet and environment.

Chronic inflammation is responsible for most of modern life diseases like heart diseases, cancer, arthritis, degenerative diseases, etc.  (1, 2, 3)

Avocado contains a good amount of anti-inflammatory compounds like carotenoids, phytosterols, and flavonoids (catechins and procyanidins). With an abundant source of anti-inflammatory nutrients, avocado proves best to fight inflammation.

These anti-inflammatory compounds, alter the NF-kB process, a primary reason for inflammation. (4, 5)

Burger lover will love it!

In studies, few people were served with 250g hamburger patty alone and other along with 68g avocado. (6)

It was found people eating just hamburger; blood vessels became significantly narrow after two hours. But people eating with avocado had improved blood vessels with better blood circulation.

Things that amazed the research, it’s inflammation reduction ability from foods. Meats or beef cooked are found to contains inflammatory compounds known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) during grilling.

Eating avocado with meat lower inflammatory risk making it safe to consume. Along with, it also reduces the inflammatory marker in the blood.

Wrap up: Anti-inflammatory compounds like carotenoids, phytosterols and flavonoids make it healthier. It also reduces the side effects of burger that contains HCAs.

2. Provide Nutrients Combination To Boost Immunity

Suffering from persistent health issues like cold and flu?

It may be more severe during climate change.

Then you should prefer a healthy diet that provides immune-boosting nutrients like Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Zinc. They boost the immunity and shorten the length of cold and flu. (7, 8, 9)

Avocado is a rich source of these nutrients making it highly recommend to boost immunity.

Another good reason to eat avocado is its fat content, as it increases absorption of fat soluble nutrients like Vitamin A and Vitamin E.

Wrap up: It contains all essential nutrients Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Zinc that helps to boost immunity. Fat increase absorption of such nutrients from it and even from other food we eat with it.

3. Avocado Protect From The Root Cause Of Cancer

Very few evidence is there to prove avocados effectivity against cancer.

But, due to its abundant source of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory components like Vitamin C, Carotenoids, phytosterols and flavonoids, they acts as a barrier against inflammation and oxidation, the precursor of cancer. (10, 11)

Another reason to eat avocado is its fatty acid, oleic acid content. Oleic is found to lower the inflammation that is responsible for cancer. It is found to have anti-tumor property (12, 13,)

In a study, it was found that people eat raw carrot along with avocado had higher carotenoid absorption rate which is converted into active Vitamin A. (14)

One study found that Avocado can prevent the adverse effect of chemotherapy to human lymphocytes.  (15)

Also, it is found to inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells due to its abundant source of antioxidants and oleic acid. Oleic acid improves antioxidants absorption leading to higher antioxidant in blood stream plays a vital role in protecting from cancer. (16)

Wrap up: With a good amount of antioxidnats, anti-inflammatory compound and oleic acid it proven beneficial to provide protection from free radicals and inflammation, the reason for cancer.

4. Lutein, Zeaxanthin and Other Nutrients Keep Eye Healthy

Avocado is a dense source of essential nutrients that are required for a healthy eye.

Eating avocados provides important antioxidants that protect from free radicals that are responsible for eye damage, a reason for cataract or macular degeneration. It also increases absorption of antioxidants from other food sources making it as the best food for eye health.

Other essential nutrients that play a major role in eye health is Lutein and Zeaxanthin.(17, 18).

Lutein and Zeaxanthin are the most important compound from which retina are developed. A higher level of lutein and zeaxanthin is the eye protects from free radicals, sun UV rays and improves vision. (19, 20 )

Avocado contains essential nutrients like carotenoid, vitamin E, vitamin C, zinc, lutein and zeaxanthin that nourish eye that is responsible for 25% lower risk of Macular degeneration in elder people. (21, 22).

Wrap up: Avocados contains essential eye nutrients like carotenoid, vitamin E, vitamin C, zinc, lutein and zeaxanthin that keep eye healthy.

5. Healthy Fat and Antioxidant In Avocado Gives Healthy Looking Skin

With a healthy dose of antioxidants and other skin nourishing nutrients, it also proves healthy for the skin.

Monosaturated fat (Omega 9) improves skin health and appearance by maintaining a good moisture level in the epidermal layer of the skin.

Healthy dietary intake of Omega 9 control sebum production which helps to control excessive oily skin, blackhead and acne.

While antioxidant neutralize the free radicals that are responsible for wrinkles and aging. (23)

Wrap up: Omega 9 helps to maintian healthy skin while antioxidnats protects from wrinkles and aging.

6. Avocado Provides Monosaturated Fat and Lutein That Protect From Arthritis

Arthritis is the worst health concern that mostly every people face as they age.

With increase in age, the joint problem is arising due to increased inflammation and free radicals damage to joint cartilage.

Early treatment and a healthy diet can be adopted to stay away and also treat it.

Antioxidants in avocado are found to fight free radical damage. Wheres, it also contains anti-inflammatory monosaturated fat and lutein that also prevent arthritis.

With proper balance in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients, it proves as the best food to prevent arthritis and also lower the joint damage in early osteoporosis.

Studies have also found that Oil from avocado and soybean unsaponifiables can treat osteoarthritis, symptoms of arthritis. (24, 25).

Along with it contains minerals like phosphorus, zinc, copper, selenium and calcium that helps in the development of healthy bone.

Wrap up: Antitoxidants and anti-inflammtory compounds protect from arthrities while bone-forming nutrients supports healthy develpment of bone.

7. Avocado Helps To Absorb Nutrients From Every Food

To balance the nutrient requirement, we eat healthy all the time. We eat a large amount of food to get maximum benefits.

Is it worth?

Some of the essential nutrients that we require in large quantity are Vitamin A, D, E, K and carotenoids are fat-soluble. These nutrients play vital roles in protecting and nourishing our body.

Since they are fat soluble nutrients, our body is not able to absorb those nutrients from our food. It makes difficult to reach our daily required vitamins instead of eating healthy.

But there is a solution for it.

Add fat-soluble food in every food you eat. Adding healthy fat will help to absorb the fat soluble nutrients.

In study it was found that adding avocado to salad, salsa or meal increased the absorption of antioxidants by 2.5 to 15 fold. (26)

Volunteer served salad with avocado absorb three to four time more carotenoid antioxidant from food. (27)

By adding a small amount of avocado or any fat rich food with your meal, you will absorb every bit of nutrient. So you don’t have to eat more to get the required daily intake.

Meat or dairy products contain fat that make it easier, but most veggies lack fat. So next time whenever you are eating veggies, go for some fat rich food.

Wrap up: Avocado is the best food that help to get more nutrients instead of consuming less food by absorbing every nutrients from other foods.

8. Avocado Is Weight Loss Friendly

For weight loss, there are many methods and trick used. But during these process, we count calorie, reduce fat intake, starve and many other kinds of stuff we do. But the end results are not as per our plan.

There are many healthy foods that we can include with our regular food that can help us lose weight. Among those, one of them is Avocado.

Instead of loaded with a lot amount of fat and calories it is suggested as a best weight loss food. Many studies had also confirmed that it could be helpful in losing weight.

A group of people were served with avocado in their meal. Those people felt 23 % more satisfied, and their desire to eat was 28% less over next 5 hour of a meal.  (28)

It is a surprising result, as it was found that monounsaturated fatty acids are used slowly in the form of energy, instead of getting stored in the form of fat.

With the slow release of energy, we fell more satisfied thus naturally reducing the hunger pangs for a longer period.

Not all fat are made equally, among that monosaturated fat turns out to be the healthiest fat.

A healthy dose of fiber in avocado provides additional benefits for weight loss. Fiber also keeps us full for longer and also burn calories.

With a healthy dose of saturated fat and dietary fiber, avocados tend to be a great addition to the meal, salad or salsa.

If you want to lose weight then you can read The Ultimate Guide To Lose Weight.

Wrap up: Monosaturated fat keep fuller for longer time by providing energy for longer time. Fiber also boost metabolism to burn calorie and also keep full.

9. Oleic acid and Antioxidants in Avocado Boost Wound Healing

Avocado is rich in nutrients like protein, fat, vitamin and mineral that are required as enrichment for dry, damaged or chapped skin.

A study as done on rats to find the avocado wound health property. (29, 30)

Rats who received oral treatment was found to heal the wound completely in 14 days while other took 17 days to recover.

Oleic acid, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds were found to boost the healing process.

Wrap up: With a healthy dose of nutrients avocado lower the infections and increase the rate of healing wound. Oleic acid plays major role in healing wound quickly.

10. Folate and Omega 9 Are Best Mood Booster

Want to boost your mood?

Try avocado fruit as it is rich in healthy fat Omega 9 that is responsible for the healthy brain.

Along with it contains folate, a nutrient required for regulating mood.

Folate is responsible for controlling the level of homocysteine level. Increased homocysteine can block the production of serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin and dopamine are required for healthier and happier mood that lower depression. (31, 32)

Wrap up: Omega 9 in avocado is responible for healthy and happy mood. Folate also boost serotonin and dopamine level that boost mood, improve sleep, prevent depression and significantally reduce demethia risk.

11. Perfect Nutrition Combination For Complete Heart Health

Heart disease is the biggest killer around the world.

Heart disease risk is arising among many people due to change in lifestyle, diet and environment.

It is caused due to many of reason including cholesterol, inflammatory markers, triglycerides, blood pressure, etc.

All these factors are responsible for continuous degradation of heart health increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, and others.

Studies have found that eating avocado can provide an overall benefit to heart health.

A study found that eating avocado decreased both LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides by 22%, serum total cholesterol by 17% and increased good HDL cholesterol by 11%. (33)

Phytosterol possesses anti-inflammatory and antioxidant property. It also plays important role by lowering the absorption of cholesterol from the food. It also lowers the LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream promoting healthy blood flow. (34)

Avocado contains more potassium than the banana. Potassium is responsible for maintaining healthy blood pressure and it triggers heart functions. (35, 36)

Oleic acid and antioxidant are responsible for protecting cardiovascular system damage from free radicals. Along with it prevent the oxidation of cholesterol.

Fatty acids in avocado increase the absorption of antioxidants making it efficient to protect from inflammatory makers.

Wrap up: Avocado is rich source of heart-friendly nutrients. It lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol level. Phytosterol blocks absorption of cholesterol from food. Potassium regulates heart function. While oleic and antioxidants protect cardiovascular system from free radicals.

12. Avocadoes Increase Your LifeSpan

Avocado contains a perfect balance of nutrients. With a great amount of antioxidants, it also provides essential fat to improve its absorption.

With a perfect balance of nutrients intake and absorption, the risk of deficiency is a rare case.

Antioxidant protects from the worst problem, ie. aging, and cellular level damage.

These two issues are common in every people which are responsible for lower lifespan. Lowering those damage will increase the lifespan, and we will live healthier.

Many other vital nutrients in avocados are also responsible for healthier life.

Avocado’s 20 Nutrients is perfect package for health

Avocado is among the most popular food and consumed food among health conscious people. It is used in many dishes making them healthier by increasing their nutritional value and even absorbing it.

The most popular variety is Hass Avocado.

Nutrition content of cup or 150g avocado:

• Dietary fiber: 40% of RDA.
• B1: 8% of RDA.
• B2: 15% of RDA.
• B3: 16% of RDA.
• B6: 23% of RDA.
• Biotin: 18% of RDA.
• Folate: 30% of RDA
• Pantothenic acid: 42% of RDA.
• Vitamin C: 20% of RDA.
• Vitamin E: 21% of RDA.
• Vitamin K: 35% of RDA.
• Copper: 31% of RDA.
• Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus: 11% of RDA.
• Potassium: 21% of RDA.
• Zinc: 9% of RDA.
• Omega 3: 8% of RDA.

Along these nutrients, it also contains 3 gram protein and 240 gram calorie.

With a large dose of nutrient, it provides multiple benefits.

Fiber is considered healthy as it boosts digestion and helps in detoxification. It also prevents blood sugar spike that is linked to cause diabetes and many other diseases. (38, 39)

Folate also supports healthy pregnancy. It boosts pregnant women mood and also helps in the better development of the fetus.

A study found that people eating avocado with their meal stay healthier compared with who don’t eat.

The study was done on avocado-eating US adult and non-avocado eating US adult. They compared people during 24 hours period.

The result concluded that people eating avocado had greater nutrition intake compared to non-avocado eating US people:

• 6 g more Fiber intake.
• 435 mg more Potassium.
• 2.2 mg more Vitamin E.
• 57 mg more Vitamin K.
• 53 mg more Magnesium.
• 5.6 g more monosaturated fat.
• 3.2 g more saturated fat.

It concluded that including avocado in diet improve the quality of meal.

Wrap up: It contains top 20 essential nutrients that makes it healthy. With providing nutrients it also improves absorption of nutirent making it much healthier food to add in meal and salad.

Avocado Side effects / Risk

Avocado is safe to consume in daily diet with breakfast, meal, snacks, etc. These are no major side effects found yet, but few precautions should be taken.

It is safe to eat for long when taken by mouth or applied to the skin. But it is important to eat small serving if you are eating it daily.

Mid Itching: But people applying avocado oil and Vitamin B12 cream or psoriasis reported mild itching.

Pregnancy: It is safe to eat, but you need to stick to food amount. There is no evidence that it has harmful effect but take precaution.

Latex allergy: People having an allergy to latex can have an allergic reaction to avocado.

Allergic symptoms that you can get are:

• Stuffy nose
• Wheezing
• Coughing
• Edema

If you face any such symptoms, cut avocado from your diet to check out if symptoms disappear. Consult doctor it symptoms persists.

Weight Gain: There are concern due to its high fat content. Slight weight gain occurs when more avocado  are consumed daily. If you want to gain its complete benefits then you should enjoy small serving if you prefer to eat it daily.

Check out Warfarin (Coumadin) while eating Avocado.

Warfarin is used to slow the blood clotting. It is found that avocado interferes with warfarin to cut it effectiveness. You can avoid avocado until you are taking Warfarin.

Nutrition Facts

Avocado seeds and skin contains the highest amount of nutrients. Also, the nutrient density is highest at the flesh below the skin and it decreases near to the seed.

For this reason, it is suggested to cut it lengthwise to remove the skin easily just as you peel banana skin.

Something Else?

Avocado is among the healthiest food that you can enjoy in your diet. You can incorporate in your diet simply.

There are lots of recipes you can enjoy.

As there are no major side effects, you can enjoy in your daily diet as small serving.

That’s all about avocado. It’s now your turn. Go and enjoy it.

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Also leave a comment, if I have missed any point.