A Compound In Avocados Could Help In Reducing Type-2 Diabetes

An unhealthy lifestyle with a poor diet can considerably increase the chances of a person getting diabetes. However, a recent research has revealed that the mighty avocados might contain the key to make us protect from getting diabetes, kind of.

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Researchers at University of Guelph in Canada have discovered a fat molecule found only in avocados to help make our body more sensitive to insulin.

In case you didn't know, diabetes, specifically Type-2 diabetes doesn't allow the body to successfully process glucose and sugars in the blood - something that is done by insulin from the pancreas. People with diabetes can either not produce enough hormone or isn't able to process it appropriately.

This causes a body to be host to serious problems like heart disease, stroke etc.

Insulin burns fatty acids through an oxidation process in the mitochondria. However, in diabetes, this doesn't function the way it is supposed to. However, a compound in the avocado called acovatin B or AvoB fixes just that.

Researchers conducted a study where they put mice on a high-fat diet for 8 weeks to promote obesity and insulin resistance. After this, the team added AvoB to the diet of half of the mice for the next five weeks.

As the 13 weeks ended mice with AvoB in them showed a considerable drop in weight gain and their insulin sensitivity spiked up too.

According to researchers, AvoB aided mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and this was able to reveal better insulin and glucose sensitivity.

They even did a separate, blind placebo study with humans where they gave them a AvoB supplement with a regular western diet for 60 days.

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The dosages ranged from 50 miligram to 200 miligram. As the trial concluded, researchers were able to discover that the participants didn't have any issues with the compound with no effect on liver, muscles or kidneys. Moreover, some subjects also showed considerable weight loss.

Now, this doesn't mean you'll start buying an avocado in crates and consume it in every meal. Researchers still don't exactly know how much AvoB is present in each avocado and how much a person needs to consume to reap its benefits. Moreover, how our body processes this compound still remains a mystery.