There’s new evidence that a compound in avocados may help people with diabetes due to a unique fat molecule that reduces insulin resistance.
How avocados help insulin resistance
Researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada studied mice to see if AvoB, the fat molecule that’s unique to avocado, could help with insulin resistance.
For 8 weeks, the team fed mice a high-fat diet to make them obese and promote insulin resistance. At the end of the 8 weeks, they fed half the mice the same diet but with AvoB added. This continued for 5 weeks. The results were impressive. After 13 weeks:
- The mice that ate the diet with AvoB added gained weight at a slower pace than the group without it.
- The mice that at the diet with AvoB had increased insulin sensitivity.
Why did the AvoB help? It appears that the AvoB assisted in the complete oxidation of fats in the pancreas and skeletal muscle. This, in turn, lead to improved glucose tolerance and the mice’s ability to use it.
Studying AvoB in humans
There was another test done on humans, which looked at the effects of AvoB on an average Western diet for 2 months.
The study participants took either 50 mg or 200 mg of AvoB and there were no issues. Although the volunteers did lose a little weight, it wasn’t considered statistically significant.
Unfortunately, just eating avocados doesn’t appear to be enough to see benefits. In order to get enough AvoB, you’d have to take it in a powder or pill, which may be hitting the Canadian market soon as Health Canada has already cleared the products for human consumption.
“We advocate healthy eating and exercise as solutions to the problem, but that’s difficult for some people,” says the paper’s lead author, Nawaz Ahmed. “We’ve known this for decades, and obesity and diabetes are still a significant health problem.”
