A fruit that we often overlook has been found to potentially help improve sleep quality and make it easier to get a good night's sleep.
Interestingly, the fruit is non other than avocado!
The study, supported by the Avocado Nutrition Center was originally designed to examine the effects of avocado on heart health, as per The Independent.
However, participants reported improvement in sleep, prompting researchers to explore the benefit on sleep as well.
The study, which involved 969 US adults with larger waistlines, concluded that adults who ate one avocado every day for six month experienced better sleep quality than those who ate fewer than two avocados per month.
Also, people who ate avocados every day tended to have healthier overall diets and lower cholesterol levels.
Dr. John Saito, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and pulmonologist at Children's Hospital of Orange County said in a statement, noting, "This was a cardiovascular health trial, making the sleep benefits more credible since they emerged as unexpected secondary findings in a well-designed randomized controlled trial."
Improved sleep linked to eating avocados may be due to its nutrients like tryptophan, folate and magnesium.
Magnesium helps muscles relax and contract while tryptophan and folate help the body to produce melatonin, the hormone that controls sleep cycle.
While avocados are nutritious, they are still high in fat and calories as eating a whole large avocado can add around 400 calories to your daily intake.
Experts recommend to eat avocados in moderation such as in smoothie or salad.
