Researchers Pay $300 to Anyone Who Will Eat an Avocado a Day for Six Months

Joan Sabanté, MD, the director of the Center for Nutrition, Lifestyle and Disease Prevention at California’s Loma Linda University School of Public Health, is recruiting participants for a new study on the link between avocado consumption and weight loss. Sabanté will select 250 participants to be placed in two groups: a test group that is given 16 avocados every two weeks and instructed to consume one avocado per day for six months, and a control group which cannot consume more than two avocados per month during the study period. “The study will examine whether eating one avocado per day reduces visceral adipose fat in the abdomen,” Sabanté said. At the completion of the study, all participants will receive $300, and the control group will get a bonus of 24 avocados to compensate them for abstaining from the nutritious fruit. In conjunction with Sabanté’s research, similar studies will be conducted with a total of 1,000 participants at Pennsylvania State University, Tufts University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.