Important points
- One study showed that eating avocado every day for six months improved diet quality, cholesterol levels, and sleep.
- Despite initially focusing on heart health, the study found benefits for sleep.
- Nutritionists say foods like walnuts, tart cherry juice, and salmon have similar health benefits.
Avocados contain healthy fats and fiber that can improve your cholesterol levels and other nutrients that can improve your sleep quality. A 2025 study found that eating an avocado every day for six months was associated with improved sleep, improved cholesterol, better diet quality, and better sleep quality.1
How avocados lower cholesterol and promote heart health
Avocados can lower cholesterol:
- Avocado is a great source of ‘health’ monounsaturated fat.2 Research shows that eating avocados, especially in place of saturated fats like butter and cheese, can lower your risk of heart disease.3
- One avocado contains 10 grams of dietary fiber. lower cholesterol levels and risk of heart disease.24 Soluble fiber in avocados forms a gel in the small intestine that binds to bile acids and “bad” cholesterol, helping remove them from the body. Judy Simon, MS, RDN, FANDa clinical nutritionist and nutritionist at UW Medical Center.
- Too much LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” can build up in your arteries and cause chest pain and heart attacks.5
Can avocado help improve sleep quality?
Study participants who ate avocado daily had improved sleep health and sleep duration.1
“This is a cardiovascular health trial, and it appears as an unexpected secondary finding in a well-designed randomized controlled trial, giving us even more confidence in the sleep effect.” Dr. John SaitoA spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) told Berrywell in an email.
Avocado is not a sleeping pillHowever, they contain nutrients that support sleep, such as magnesium, potassium, and healthy fats, Saito explained.
“Eating a regularly balanced diet that combines healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and protein supports your circadian rhythm,” says Saito.
Benefits of eating avocado every day
The six-month study, funded by the Center for Avocado Nutrition, enrolled 969 American adults with abdominal obesity who typically ate two or fewer avocados a month.
- One group ate one avocado every day, while the other group stuck to no more than two a month. The researchers didn’t ask either group to make any other changes in their diet.
- The researchers American Heart Association Life’s Essential 8 Score Measure your heart health. Higher scores indicate better cardiovascular health and reflect factors such as diet, physical activity, and quality sleep.1
- Eating avocado daily didn’t improve overall heart health scores, but it did help Improving meal quality, sleep, and blood lipids.
“These findings suggest that detectable improvements in the Essential 8 indicators require relatively large improvements in most of the cardiovascular health components,” said the study’s lead author and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Janhavi Damani. Pennsylvania State University Diet and Cardiometabolic Health Laboratoryhe told Berrywell in an email.
Damani added that achieving “meaningful improvements” in cardiovascular health requires gradual and sustained changes in diet and lifestyle.
How to add avocado to a healthy diet
Avocados can be part of a healthy, fiber-rich diet that supports sleep. However, it is not suitable for everyone, especially if you have dietary restrictions.
“If you have an avocado, eating an avocado every day won’t do you any good. avocado allergy or following low potassium diet, low FODMAP dietor follow a very low-fat diet under the supervision of your health care provider. ” Jamie Mok, MS, RD“I think it’s a good thing,” the Los Angeles-based registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics told Berrywell in an email.
Mok added that other foods may have similar health benefits. especially for sleepThese include walnuts, tart cherry juice, fatty fish like salmon, and some herbal teas, but more research is needed.
If you want more avocado, try adding it to salad dressings, eggs, baked potatoes, smoothies, sandwiches, and more. But you don’t have to eat one every day or spend more than you can afford, Simon says.
“I don’t think one food will change everything,” Simon says.
