Daily avocado in Latina women: adherence and body weight
What it found
Latina women who were given an avocado a day for 6 months ate close to the target amount, and their weight and waist circumference stayed about the same as women who followed their usual diet.
The trial was in people.
What they found
Studies in people
Avocado eaten
Women in the avocado group ate 1.9 to 2.1 servings of avocado a day, close to the target of one avocado (about 2.2 servings). Women in the usual diet group ate 0.04 to 0.09 servings a day.
Weight
At the end of the study, average weight was 86.3 kg in the usual diet group and 87.2 kg in the avocado group. The authors say the difference was not significant.
Waist circumference
Waist circumference was similar between the two groups at the end of follow-up.
Diet quality
Diet quality scores were higher in the avocado group at 8 and 16 weeks, but similar between groups at the final recall.
What the authors conclude
“Integrating a culturally preferred food into a dietary intervention enhanced adherence amongst Latina adults, with no impact significant impact on body composition.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say that integrating a culturally preferred food into a dietary intervention enhanced adherence among Latina adults, with no significant impact on body composition.
- They suggest that future studies in diverse communities should consider providing food to improve adherence and retention.
- They conclude that culturally tailoring dietary recommendations may improve adherence to a healthy diet in minority communities.
How it was done
Hispanic women are more likely to have obesity and related diseases than non-Hispanic white women, and they often lose less weight in lifestyle programs. The authors wanted to see if a culturally familiar food, the avocado, would help Latina women stick to a diet.
They studied 158 Hispanic or Latina women, aged 25 and over, who were part of a larger trial called HAT. For 6 months, 80 women were given fresh avocados and told to eat one a day, while 78 women followed their usual diet and were told to eat no more than 2 avocados a month. Weight and waist circumference were measured at 2, 12 and 26 weeks.
What it can’t tell you
- This was a 6-month trial, so it cannot show what happens over a longer period.
- The study did not test whether avocado affects other health outcomes like diabetes or heart disease.
- The results are specific to Latina women with a larger waist size, so they may not apply to other groups.
Who paid
- Funding
- Funded by NCATS NIH HHS; National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health under the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (from the PubMed record).
- Conflicts
- The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
- Authors work at
- Fielding School of Public Health, USA; David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, USA; Penn State University, USA
The paper
- Title
- Adherence and Body Weight with Daily Avocado Consumption Among Latina Women of the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial (HAT)
- Type
- Randomised controlled trial
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Luong TQ, Adeyemo MA, Kris-Etherton PM, et al (2025). Adherence and Body Weight with Daily Avocado Consumption Among Latina Women of the Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial (HAT). Nutrients. doi:10.3390/nu17020367Free full textPubMed 39861497DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error