Yes, the avocado is that savory fruit that contains “healthy fat.”  We can deliciously add it to our breakfast, lunch or dinner.

But there’s another reason to love the avocado. New research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has found that eating an avocado a day, as part of an overall diet rich in healthy fats, may help lower our bad cholesterol — known as LDL.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University recruited 45 overweight participants between the ages of 21 and 70 who volunteered to try three different types of cholesterol-lowering diets.

The avocado diet decreased LDL cholesterol about 14 milligrams per deciliter of blood, while the low-fat diet caused a decrease of about 7 mg/dL, and the moderate-fat diet lowered it about 8 mg/dL.  That is a pretty big difference.

Scientists do offer possible explanations for the results, saying that avocados provide us with a unique combination of vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytosterols, and other dietary bioactives. The avocado diet provided 35% more fiber than the diets without it.