If you want to lose weight you should eat an avocado every day, says new study

People who eat avocados have smaller waists than those who don’t

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According to a new study, it’s not an apple a day that keeps the doctor away, but rather an avocado a day. As if that isn’t the best news to come out of 2017.

The latest research suggests that they can help prevent against diabetes and heart disease, but also they can be a good way to prevent metabolic syndrome, known as “the silent killer”. Metabolic syndrome is a term used to describe a combination of three or more risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, so stuff like high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and a large waist circumference.

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This new study, conducted by Iranian researchers and published in the journal Phylotherapy Research, looked at 129 studies that had already been published about the different effects of eating avocados on different parts of metabolic syndrome. Most of the studies looked at the fleshy part, the bit most people eat, but some also included avocado leaves, peels, oil, and seeds.

According to the research, avocados have the biggest and most beneficial effects on your cholesterol levels, and on top of that “the lipid-lowering, antihypertensive, anti-diabetic, anti-obesity, antithrombotic, antiatherosclerotic, and cardioprotective effects of avocado have been demonstrated in several studies”. Basically, this means that avocados are your one-stop-shop for avoiding metabolic syndrome.

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Cynthia Sass, who was not involved in the review, said “this is just yet another study to show that avocados truly deserve superfood status”, and also points out that avocados can help stave off belly fat, one of the most dangerous types of fat to carry. And even though they’re high in fat – the healthy kind – compared with other fruits, it’s hard to binge on avocados because they’re “very satiating. It’s almost like they have a built-in stop-gap”.

Research also shows that people who eat more avocados weigh less and have smaller waists than those who don’t, even when they eat more calories overall.