Avocado Consumption and Immune Response: A Review on Ethiopian Context

This article is going to discuss about avocado (Persea americana) in terms of varieties, nutritional fact, scientific evidences of immune response of avocado and its nutrients with special emphasis on Ethiopian situation. According to the United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) National Nutrient Database; avocados contain carbohydrate, protein, mono-unsaturated fatty acids, dietary fiber, minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, copper, manganese, phosphorus, zinc and selenium and vitamins like vitamin A, K, C, E, B6, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid and folate. Early published literature showed that avocado can boost up immune systems, having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potency. Avocados are available throughout the year in Ethiopia, but price, quality and accessibility may vary from region to region. But Ethiopians are fond of eating avocados in form of juice, salad, and sandwich as well as in raw form irrespective of age, sex and social class. On the other hand, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (USA) enlisted the top five leading causes of death in Ethiopia (2017), they are Neonatal disorders; Diarrhoeal diseases; Lower respiratory infection; Tuberculosis; Ischaemic heart disease. Among the identified mortality related behavioural risk, malnutrition and dietary practice are within top five lists. Based on this information, Ethiopia has to search any low cost food based dietary approach, which can support to handle immunity mediated disease burden with the limited resources and health service implementation challenges. In this respect, avocado can be considered for its nutritional value and It's availability, accessibility and affordability issue. Unfortunately, there is no published research article and/ review and/ case study available related to avocado consumption and health benefits specially immune response in Ethiopian context. Along with in depth research on nutritional characteristics of avocado; exploration and attention are required in field of the avocado farming, food processing technology, awareness creation on “what-when- how” to consume food and multi-sectoral coordination between Government, Non-Governmental organisation and other stakeholders.