Women Should Eat One Avocado a Day, say University of Illinois Researchers

Moving a step closer to experts recommending guacamole every day. Well, not quite, but this is great news for any woman fighting belly fat.

A little secret weapon was just revealed to be a great way to fight the kind of dangerous body fat that surrounds our organs

Weight Loss-Helping Food That Doesn't Taste Awful

Before sharing the 'one avocado a day' news, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign tracked a group of men and women for three months.

The goal of this study was all about the avocado, it wasn't about losing weight. The research project was about understanding what eating an avocado does to the way we store body fat. The location of fat in the body plays an important role in health.

The lead researcher, Naiman Khan, an Illinois professor of kinesiology and community health, says,

“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.”

For twelve weeks study participants were given identical meals, although only half the group was given an avocado with their daily meal.

The results: Women who ate an avocado regularly had a significant reduction in their visceral abdominal fat, which can be the hardest fat to get rid of and also considered an indicator of high disease risk in large amounts. The women also experienced a drop in their ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat, which researchers believe suggests a redistribution of fat away from organs.

How did a daily avocado help the men in the study?

The avocado a day study did not produce the same results for men.