Eating Avocados Supports A Healthy Gut
Eating an avocado every day is one of the best ways of keeping your gut healthy and that has a big impact on your immune system and overall health and wellbeing. Eating the fruit at least once a day ensures there is a good diversity of bacteria in your gut microbiome, the body’s “second brain” that controls our health. The fats in avocados also help the gut break down fiber and produce metabolites that support gut health, say researchers from University of Illinois.
They gave an avocado a day to around 80 part of their meals, and gave the to another group but without avocado. All the participants were overweight or obese. Those who ate the avocados had healthier and more diverse gut microbiomes, and were also excreting less fat, which suggests they were getting more energy from the other food they were eating.
An avocado is a fruit high in energy and nutrients, including important micronutrients such as potassium and fiber. Adding an avocado to a daily meal is one quick and simple way to get some of the nutrients and fiber we need.
Earlier studies have discovered that avocados reduce cholesterol levels—and now we know it is good for our gut as well. “It’s just a really nicely packaged fruit that contains nutrients that are important to our health. Our work shows we can add benefits to gut health to that list,” said researcher Hannah Holscher Assistant Professor of Nutrition, University of Illinois.