The effect of avocados on small, dense LDL cholesterol

How do oatmeal, walnuts, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados affect the size of LDL cholesterol?

When on headline reads Avocados could to enhance your cholesterol-and more, the Articles and the like largely talk about substitution experiments in which avocado is included in the diet have a substituteement Per animal fat. In this case, it is No wonder the cholesterol level is dropping. D.Fluffy and Poultry are the two biggest sources of cholesterol-increasing saturated fat intake, S.o if you take people with you who are eating a standard North American diet including animal fat, they can start out with an LDL Cholesterol levels hereabouts 95mg / dl. if you Add avocado to their diet without doing anything else, her Cholesterol does Not walk; instead of this, it can go up to approx. 105mg / dl. IF. they Add avocado and at the same time reduce the absorption of saturated fat, although, Cholesterol goes down up to about 90mg / dlbut this drop is not very different from what you would get through only reduce saturated fats and nothing to add, Which showed an LDL below 90 mg / dlas you can see at 0:34 in my video Avocados lower the small, dense LDL cholesterol.

W.Hat if you compared the effects of mealing no meat at all with a flesh-free diet that contained avocado? Researcher took People with sky high cholesterol Levels until about 300mg / dl and switched them either a relatively low-fat vegetarian diet with around 20 percent Calories from fat or a vegetarian diet with added avocado that took It’s going ok about 30 percent of the calories from fat, that is a more typical fat content. As you can see in mine at 1:22 Video, THe Study participants started out with LDLs through the roof, and, while cutting out meat may have helped, cutting out meat and adding avocado even seemed to help moreand it can Help best with the worst kind of LDL.

As I mentioned earlier, all LDL cholesterol is bad cholesterol. However lbig, fluffy LDL is only allowed increase the likelihood of cardiac events such as Heart attack from 31 percentwhile small, dense LDL is worse and increases the odds by 44 percent.

If you feed people on lots of oatmeal and oat bran, not only the caused their LDL to overall going down but special brings below the small LDL that the worst of the worst. What if you add walnuts on a low-fat diet? As you can see in mine at 2:04 am Video, LDL goes Low and, at the same time, the size distribution of the LDL Shifts to being something more benign. What if you eat a plant-based diet high in fiber and nuts? As shown as 2:15 in mine Video, you can to get massive 30 percent Lower LDL, a drop that is comparable to a cholesterol-lowering statin. What’s more That contains a drop the small, dense one LDL, that’s that most dangerous.

The does not do it happen with extra virgin olive oil, However, S.o It’s not just a monounsaturated fat effect. In the famous PREDIMED study that you can see in mine at 2:35 Video, those assigned to the extra nut group got a significant decrease in the smallest, densest LDL, but the randomized extraThe virgin olive oil group did not do this. So there seem to be some special components in nuts that reduce the worst from the worst LDL cholesterol.

Do avocados offer similar benefits? We havedid not know until the first randomized controlled feeding Court hearing to Looking for for avocados and LDL size. Researchers ExtinguishD. animal fat from people’s diet and replace itD. it with either carbohydrateshydrates, avocado, or vegetable oils with a fat profile similar to avocados. In this way, the avocado group and the Vegetable oil group were put on very similar diets, except one had the nutrients unique to avocados and the other had nÖT.

What happened?

ONEvery time you lower intake of saturated fatty acids, like replacing animal fat with vegetable fat (in this case vegetable oil) or carbohydrates, You will bring down LDL. Okay but do it substituteing animal fat with the whole plant food avocado Make a difference? Yes. That led to an even better effect. To see why that Researcher broken down the LDL into large and small. All three treatments brought Low the dangerous large LDL, but the avocado had the added effect of being that too great dangerous little LDL. That extra drop came from there. You can see a graph showing these results at 3:27 in my. represents Video.

So it’s not just about substitute animal fat with vegetable fat. THere are additional benefits to the fiber and phytonutrients of whole plant foods like avocados.

If Avocados have something good, should weather simply add avocado extracts to meat? Now, IObviously work avocado extracts into pork patties reduced the meat Cholesterol Oxidation Products that was weathereverything is documented be toxic, carcinogenic and atherosclerotic, but it does not eliminate them.


  • Dairy products and poultry are two of the major sources of cholesterol-increasing saturated fat in the diet.
  • Simply adding avocado to your diet without reducing your saturated fat intake does not appear to lower your cholesterol and can actually increase it.
  • Substitution experiments, in which avocado replaces animal fats in the diet, have shown improvements in cholesterol levels, but the decrease does not seem to be much different from reducing saturated fat consumption without adding anything else.
  • When comparing the effects of a meat-free diet with a meat-free diet with added avocado, the researchers found that cutting out meat while adding avocado helped even more than just cutting out meat, and it may be more effective on the worst kind of bad LDL cholesterol help small, dense LDL.
  • Oatmeal, oat bran, walnuts, and a plant-based diet high in fiber and nuts have all shown to lower overall LDL, and especially the more dangerous, small LDL, but this has not been seen with extra virgin olive oil. This suggests that it’s not just a monounsaturated fat effect.
  • The researchers removed animal fat from the subjects’ diet and replaced it with either carbohydrates, avocado, or vegetable oils with fat profiles similar to avocados.
  • All three treatments lowered the large LDL, but avocado had the added effect of lowering the more dangerous small LDL as well.

What about the effects on cholesterol levels in people who do not eat a vegetable diet? See my Video Are Avocados Good For You? Cholesterol?.

F.or more information on large, fluffy LDL versus small ones, dense LDL, check out Flashback Friday: Is Cholesterol Size Important ?.

and, If you love avocados as much as I do, you are can Are interested in:

In health,

Michael Greger, MD

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