An avocado a day could help reduce abdominal visceral fat in women and result in health benefits, researchers wrote in the Journal of Nutrition.
In a randomised study, women who consumed avocado as part of their daily meal experienced a reduction in deeper visceral abdominal fat, though glucose tolerance markers were unchanged.
Study leader Naiman Khan, professor of kinesiology and community health, at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said:
“The goal wasn’t weight loss; we were interested in understanding what eating an avocado does to the way individuals store their body fat. The location of fat in the body plays an important role in health,” Prof Khan said.
“In the abdomen, there are two kinds of fat: fat that accumulates right underneath the skin, called subcutaneous fat, and fat that accumulates deeper in the abdomen, known as visceral fat, that surrounds the internal organs. Individuals with a higher proportion of that deeper visceral fat tend to be at a higher risk of developing diabetes. So we were interested in determining whether the ratio of subcutaneous to visceral fat changed with avocado consumption,” he said.
The participants were divided into two groups; one received meals incorporating a fresh avocado, and the other received a meal that had nearly identical ingredients and similar calories but without avocado. At the beginning and end of the trial, the researchers measured participants’ abdominal fat and their glucose tolerance, a measure of metabolism and a marker of diabetes.
Female participants who consumed an avocado a day as part of their meal had a reduction in visceral abdominal fat and experienced a reduction in the ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat, indicating a redistribution of fat away from the organs. However, in males there was no change in fat distribution, and neither males nor females had improvements in glucose tolerance.
“While daily consumption of avocados did not change glucose tolerance, what we learned is that a dietary pattern that includes an avocado every day impacted the way individuals store body fat in a beneficial manner for their health, but the benefits were primarily in females,” Prof Khan said. “It’s important to demonstrate that dietary interventions can modulate fat distribution. Learning that the benefits were only evident in females tells us a little bit about the potential for sex playing a role in dietary intervention responses.”
The next step would be to provide all of the participants’ daily meals and look at additional markers of gut health and physical health for a more complete understanding of metabolic impacts and whether this sex difference persists.
Source: University of Illinois Alabama
