HAHAHA I LOVE THIS STUDY: - n=45 - most of the comparisons were within-group - they ate A WHOLE AVOCADO A DAY - no improvement in most markers of heart disease - FUNDED BY BIG AVOCADO (seriously)pic.twitter.com/0Dg9dNW9TF
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Basically, this means that you compare the avocado diet at the end to the avocado diet at the beginning, rather than the control groups that they had This makes the result a bit meaningless because of regression to the mean (among other things)pic.twitter.com/TgLwBWRfeD
If you ignore all the within-group comparisons, you're left with this. Avocados: - increase lutein concentrations a tiny bit - increase carotene concentrations (but less than another medium-fat diet) - decrease 'bad' cholesterol by ~4% more than another medium-fat dietpic.twitter.com/RQ3PZGXCrq
And remember, these weren't (as the headlines suggest) people just adding avocados to their diets! These were people eating care-fully controlled, formulated diets centered around avocados
It is ABSURD to suggest that you could take these complex, within-study diets and apply the results to people who are wondering what to eat to be a bit healthier
So why were the results blown so wildly out of proportion by the media (seriously, this was a pretty meaningless study)? Hard to say. But, could be to do with the funders of the trial...
Yes, this research was funded by the Hass Avocado Board, the organisation for the most commonly-grown avocado in the world (who the senior study author also works for) In other words, BIG AVOCADOpic.twitter.com/AgfBmsVIxY
(As a side note, I'm confused how you can be employed by an organisation and then claim that they had no role in your study design - sure, not your primary role, but still...)
Another ~truly amazing~ thing about this study? The trial registration specifies 4 primary outcomes (total cholesterol, HDL, trigs, AND LDL) They only reported one I WONDER WHY THAT MIGHT BE????pic.twitter.com/TwaDjM733C
There is some mention of HDL cholesterol, but only in reference to CETP (enzyme changes), nothing on differences between diets and nothing at all on triglycerides or total cholesterol!!!pic.twitter.com/J85nBIjNaJ
In summary: - industry-funded study - showed pretty much no benefit for avocados - didn't report 3 out of 4 primary outcomes (!) - probably doesn't apply to most people anyway
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