Study started in Brazil and completed in Sweden shows the importance of ingesting healthy fats and suggests the benefits of consuming the fruit
After a week on a high-fat diet, people often feel deeply guilty and promise to make up for the excess by consuming leaves and vegetables throughout the week. They certainly regret the lack of an antidote for immediate control of metabolic markers such as cholesterol, triglycerides and blood glucose. But it exists, and it is also fat, as paradoxical as it may seem. This is avocado oil extracted from the pulp of the fruit. Olive oil, an appropriate name, because the term oil refers to extracts from seeds such as soybeans, corn, cotton, canola.
This revelation can be found in the doctoral thesis by nutritionist Cibele Priscila Busch Furlan, developed at Unicamp's Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA) and completed at Lund University, Lund, Sweden, which led to an article published at the end of last year, even before his defense, in the Journal of Functional Foods, high impact.
In its first stage carried out in Brazil with animals, the study allowed us to conclude that several metabolic parameters could be controlled and even brought to adequate levels when using the food consumed by rats. wistar avocado oil was added for about three months. In the second phase, carried out in Sweden, the work focused on verifying what happened in humans, in the acute phase, that is, when subjected to a high-calorie and high-fat meal. This had not yet been done. The effect of food intake on the main metabolic parameters immediately after ingestion was then evaluated, which is called the postprandial effect. At this stage, metabolic indices relating to glycemia, cholesterol, triglycerides, inflammation, among others, were determined in 13 healthy, non-diabetic adults, aged 65 years, who suffer a chronic and latent inflammatory process as a result of overweight.
The clinical study cross-over, in which butter was replaced with Hass avocado avocado oil at breakfast, showed a significant reduction in glycemia, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, postprandial inflammation, a tendency to improve insulin and reduce endoxemia - which corresponds to the passage of certain substances, which cause infection, from the intestine to the bloodstream, in addition to reducing the risk of atherosclerosis.
For the researcher, these results reinforce the importance of correct choice regarding the quality of food and especially fat, regardless of the dietary calories ingested, as foods with biocompounds - responsible for specific benefits to the body - are fundamental for improving biological markers, promoting and health maintenance.
Human research
So that comparisons could be established, participants, previously selected and subjected to standard exams, were offered a breakfast consisting of bread, French fries, bacon, eggs and butter within a week. The following week, the same dish was prepared by replacing the butter with avocado oil. Everyone had 30 minutes for the meal and immediately afterwards the first blood collection was carried out, repeated at 30-minute intervals, for four hours. In each sample, the following were determined: glucose levels; all the most common fat fractions, such as total cholesterol, LDL - known as bad cholesterol, HDL - called good cholesterol, triglycerides - which also constitute a fat fraction; the inflammatory markers CRP and IL-6 - indicative of the propensity to develop diabetes by causing the degradation of insulin and glucose signaling receptors in membranes.
The results were surprising, says the researcher: “We found that, even with the consumption of a high-fat diet, replacing butter with avocado oil when preparing the dish led to an immediate reduction in all the metabolic markers mentioned, except for HDL, whose indices remained.”
Having also noted the strong action of avocado oil in reducing inflation and how it modulates the intestinal wall, the researchers decided on another analysis that would allow determining the migration of some compounds present in intestinal bacteria, called LPS, to the bloodstream, because they also activate inflammation that blocks insulin uptake, increasing the tendency to develop diabetes. Even here, avocado oil revealed great potential, constituting an immediate, post-prandial barrier to this migration.
The researcher highlights the novelty of the findings: “It was known that the avocado fruit brings great benefits, but the immediate effects of olive oil were still unknown, even because its consumption and sale in supermarkets are very recent.”
In the Brazilian phase of the work, she carried out analyzes to determine the composition of olive oil and its effect on the animals' main metabolic markers, when she was guided by professor Mário Roberto Maróstica Junior, from the Department of Food and Nutrition at FEA, who maintains a line of research focused on mainly in obesity and the problems that can arise from it, such as the occurrence of a subclinical inflammatory process, of silent manifestation, resulting from obesity, which triggers type 2 diabetes. By the way, says the researcher: “The initial focus of my work with animals was the treatment of this inflammation using avocado oil to delay the development of diabetes.” In Sweden, where the work continued as a result of the results obtained in Brazil, the supervisors were professors Elin Ösman and, more systematically, Juscelino Tovar, from Lund University, which has adequate infrastructure for research on humans.
Social implications
Although the most immediate effects occur with the ingestion of olive oil, which is justified when cholesterol levels are high, Cibele considers that consuming the fruit also brings the benefit of fiber, options that depend on health conditions. Even because the cost of olive oil is still very high and the foods to which it is added are less palatable. To ensure that the properties of the oil are not altered, it is still necessary to consume it preferably at room temperature or in very quick sautés. She highlights that it is a product that has on average twice as many phytosterols as olive oil and is extremely important for reducing high cholesterol. Although the varieties of avocados are large, the researcher opted for olive oil from the Hass variety, with a small fruit, which, in addition to being richer in oil, is also very tasty for consumption. in natura.
For the nutritionist, the study makes it possible to promote awareness of the health benefits that consuming good fats can bring. She recommends avocado between the main meals and believes that a quarter of the large fruit or even half of the avocado species would be important in everyday life. Regarding foods that are sources of saturated fats (low recommendation), Cibele suggests that everyone asks themselves the question: how healthy am I to consume delicious butter, for example? And he warns: “The concern should not only be with the quantity of what is eaten but, mainly, with the quality of the fats ingested, in order to guarantee the balance of fat and anti-inflammatory markers”. She remembers that good fats are in avocado, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, olive oil and canola oil. And she thought our suggestion was delicious: “Lots of avocado with sugar and lemon, but without giving up the drippings with bread and butter”.