Avocados can help to keep you young and fight against diseases by tackling hazardous molecules, say researchers. Avocado oil is analogous in composition to olive oil, and its consumption is associated with bizarrely low levels of chronic disease in some Mediterranean nations.
Avocado oil combats free radicals or dangerous molecules, which are believed to cause everything from ageing to heart disease and cancer. These are common particularly inside the cell’s mitochondria, which is a tiny powerhouse in the cell and turns the food into energy. Majority of antioxidants in fruit and vegetables such as carrot and tomato can mop up free radicals.
But, these antioxidant chemicals cannot make their way inside mitochondria, except those in avocados. Wobbly free radicals are natural waste products of metabolism but can be produces in larger numbers because of factors such as pollution, tobacco smoke and radiation. They inflict havoc in the body by triggering chain reactions that destroy cell membranes, proteins and even DNA.
The researchers found avocado oil permitted yeast cells to survive exposure to high concentrations of iron, an element that generates gigantic amounts of free radicals. They need to confirm that what has been observed in yeasts could occur in higher organisms, such as humans.
Lead researcher Christian Cortes-Rojo from the University Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo in Mexico, stated the problem is that the antioxidants in other substances are unable to enter mitochondria. So free radicals continue damaging mitochondria, causing energy production to stop and the cell to collapse and die.
An analogy would be that, during an oil spill, if only the spilled oil cleaned instead of fixing the perforation where oil is escaping, then the oil would go on spilling, and fish would die anyway. The new invention could mean avocado oil becoming the olive oil of the Americas, added Cortes-Rojo.
Earlier conducted in Mexico, the world’s largest avocado producer has shown that the fruit lowers blood levels of cholesterol, and certain fats linked to diabetes. The phenomenon is one of the major drivers of ageing are free radicals which believed to play a major role in damage to arteries and cancer.