New US research has revealed prebiotic benefits of eating an avocado a day, especially among people with low diet quality.
The US study, an ancillary of the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial (HAT), explored the short and long-term gut health impacts of daily avocado consumption, among 230 people with abdominal obesity.
Participants were randomly assigned to the Avocado Supplemented Diet Group (AVO), receiving one large avocado per day (168g), or the Habitual Diet group (HAB), maintaining their usual dietary habits, both without energy restriction. Faecal samples were collected at baseline, one month (four weeks) and six months (26 weeks).
In this study, participants with a waist circumference of >89 centimetres for women and >101 centimetres for men, were considered to have abdominal obesity.
The results, published in the journal Food & Function, showed participants eating an avocado a day (AVO) had higher alpha diversity at one month and was maintained at six months, suggesting the avocado was having an impact on microbiota variety and distribution of microbial species. At six months, the AVO group also had a significant change in beta diversity, microbial diversity between individuals, compared to the HAB group.
Looking in detail at the changes in microbiota diversity, the AVO group had significantly increased Faecalibacterium prausnitzii at six months, compared to the HAB group. Faecalibacterium prausnitzii is considered important for maintaining gut health and reduced levels of his bacteria have been associated with many diseases, including Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), colorectal cancer and diabetes.
The AVO group also had increased Ruminococcus, which may positively impact visceral body fat, and BacteriumAF16_15, the effects of this bacteria are still unclear.
The improvements in microbial composition among the AVO group were most pronounced in participants with low quality diets (a low healthy eating index-2015 score at baseline ≤52.7).
The researchers concluded that eating an avocado a day positively improves gut microbiota in adults with abdominal obesity and this underlined the importance of dietary education for individuals with a low dietary quality. Both gut microbiota and diet significantly influence abdominal obesity, a major risk factor for cardiometabolic disorders.
More about HAT:
The HAT (Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial) is a US multi-site, free-living, randomised controlled trail comparing one avocado a day (AVO) and a habitual diet (HAB) in 1008 participants.
Other HAT research has found an avocado a day was positively associated with:
Improvement in overall diet quality
Improved diet quality and cholesterol without weight gain
Improved fatty acid profile in red blood cells
Practice tips
- Recommend a healthy balanced plant-rich diet that includes avocado
- Encourage daily avocado consumption to enhance gut microbiota and dietary quality, especially for people with obesity
- A serving of avocado is 75g (half a medium avocado) and can count as a serve of vegetables
- Provide practical advice to enjoy avocados daily, such as meal ideas, recipes, serving suggestions to promote daily avocado consumption.
Reference
Yang J, Kei Lei O, Bhute S, Kris-Etherton PM et al. Impact of daily avocado consumption on gut microbiota in adults with abdominal obesity: an ancillary study of HAT, a randomized controlled trial. J Food & Function 2024 https://doi.org/10.1039/D4FO03806A
