Benefit from Avocado and Side Effects

Benefit from Avocado – Avocado (Persea Americana) is a healthy local fruit. Avocado fruit is very well known and popular with the public, besides having a delicious taste and soft texture, avocado also has several health benefits.

The benefits of avocado fruit to support body health are not in doubt. Various benefits are obtained from the nutritional content of Avocado fruit. Not just complete nutrition, Avocado flavor
which are delicious to be consumed or processed into fresh drinks.

Avocados contain monounsaturated fats which are called good fats. This fruit contains good fiber, carbohydrates, and protein to support body health. This fruit with a unique taste has various benefits for health.

Nutrition Content

Here’s a table that shows the nutritional content of a typical medium-sized avocado:

It’s worth noting that the exact nutritional content of an avocado can vary depending on factors such as its size and ripeness.

Potential Benefits

1. Helps Maintain Weight.

Avocado fruit has fiber and carbohydrates so consuming it makes you full longer.

2. Prevent Constipation

One of the benefits of avocado is curing constipation that occurs due to a lack of fiber intake. So to overcome this condition you can meet your fiber intake. You can get this fiber intake from avocados.

3. Helps Control Blood Pressure

Benefit from Avocado – Apart from good fiber and fat, avocado fruit also contains potassium. This type of mineral is useful for helping control blood pressure and preventing high blood pressure. Potassium is also very good for helping regulate heart rate to stay normal.

4. Helps Maintain Eye Health

Another benefit of avocado fruit is that it helps maintain healthy eyes because it contains antioxidants of the types zeaxanthin and lutein in it. Routinely consuming avocados in sufficient / not excessive amounts can help reduce the risk of vision health problems in old age

5. Helps maintain heart health

Avocado is a fruit that is rich in nutrients and healthy. Contains minerals, protein, fiber, healthy fats, and vitamins which are good for maintaining heart health. Benefit from avocado can help lower LDL levels and increase HDL levels in the body.

Please note that levels of bad cholesterol or LDL that are too high are not good because they can lead to blockage of blood vessels in the heart thereby increasing the risk of developing heart health problems.

Side Effects

Avocados are a good fruit choice for your diet because they are high in fiber and rich in good fats. One of the benefits of avocados is that they help you feel full longer.

Even so, you still need to limit its consumption so you don’t experience the following health problems.

1. Increase weight

Even though avocados are included in the fruit category, they are fat-dense.

The good news is that the fat in avocados is classified as healthy unsaturated fat for the body.

However, even healthy fats can still cause you to gain weight if consumed in excess.

One medium avocado (150 gr) has a total of about 240 kcal calories and 22 grams of fat.

2. Lack of nutrition

If you make avocados a substitute for the main meal, so you eat the same food almost every day, you can experience nutritional deficiencies.

The nutrients contained in avocados are not enough to meet daily nutrition.

Avocados are low in protein and calcium.

Protein deficiency will weaken tissue and muscle mass, while calcium deficiency increases the risk of bone disease.

Avocados also don’t contain enough iron, so you are more susceptible to anemia.

3. Allergies

Although it rarely happens, some people may develop an allergy to avocados over time if they consume them excessively.

According to a review of articles in the journal Allergy, Asthma, and Clinical Immunology (2011), avocado allergies can cause sneezing, coughing, swelling, and nasal congestion.

If you experience this allergic reaction after consuming avocados, try avoiding avocados in your daily diet first.

Then see if these symptoms still appear or not.

4. Breaks the heart

One of the side effects of consuming too much avocado is endangering the health of the liver.

There are chemical compounds in avocado oil that can harm the liver. These ingredients are estragole and anethole.

Based on several old studies on animals (in vivo), the two chemical compounds showed carcinogenic or cancer-causing properties in the rat liver.

Even so, the exact side effects of these two compounds in humans are not yet known.

5. Causing drug interactions

If you are taking an Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or blood pressure-lowering drug, avoid eating avocados in large quantities. Because you will not get the benefits of avocado.

Potassium-rich foods, such as avocados, will cause drug interactions with this type of drug.

You have the potential to experience high potassium levels ( hyperkalemia ) in the body which can trigger arrhythmias and irregular heartbeats.

You should eat avocado one hour before or four hours after taking an ACE inhibitor.

6. Digestive tract irritation

A study in The Journal of Nutrition (2021) evaluated the impact of avocado consumption on the microbiota (bacteria in the gut).

The research was conducted on 163 people who were overweight and obese for 12 weeks. Research results show that eating avocados in large quantities can irritate the digestive tract.

Gastrointestinal irritation is prone to causing flatulence, bloating, cramps, continuous gassing, and diarrhea.

In the long term, irritation can lead to infection. That way, you don’t get the benefits of the avocado but get the disease.

7. Lower good cholesterol

Avocados can lower levels of bad cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which can cause heart problems.

But besides the benefits, there are side effects of eating too much avocado.

Avocados are rich in beta-sitosterol, this compound absorbs bad cholesterol if the amount is excessive.

However, these compounds also absorb high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the beneficial type of good cholesterol.

One of the functions of good HDL cholesterol is to maintain the strength and health of the inner walls of blood vessels, thereby preventing strokes.

As well as being delicious and nutritious, avocados are healthy because they are a great source of healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

However, eating too many avocados can have some adverse health effects. Therefore, to get the benefits of avocados, eat them in moderation.