(RNN) - It sounds like a Millennial’s dream, right? Getting paid to eat avocados.
A Loma Linda University health professor is testing a popular theory about the health benefits of the fatty fruit and will pay 250 people to help his research team to figure out if “moderate avocado consumption actually promotes weight loss.”
“The study will examine whether eating one avocado per day reduces visceral adipose (belly) fat in the abdomen,” Dr. Joan Sabaté said.
She heads the Center for Nutrition, Lifestyle and Disease Prevention at LLU.
Three other schools are also taking part - Penn State University, Tufts University and UCLA. Each will recruit 250 participants for a total of 1,000 participants in the study.
Participants for the study must:
- Be 25 years of age or older
- Be willing to either eat one avocado per day for six months or eat only two avocados per month for the same period
- Measure at least 40 inches around the waist if they are male
- Measure at least 35 inches around the waist if they are female
- Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups.
The test group will be given 16 avocados every two weeks and required to eat one avocado per day throughout the six-month study.
The control group will be required to eat no more than two avocados per month during the same period.
“Selected participants will receive a free MRI and health screening by an LLU clinician, and asked to attend a monthly meeting with a dietician,” a LLU statement said.
At the end of the study participants in both groups will be paid $300 each.
The study is funded by the Hass Avocado Board.
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