Controlling your cholesterol is one of the best things you can do to maintain your circulatory health. Although the best approach is to adopt a balanced diet with heart-healthy foods, it can be tempting to adopt a fad diet like the watermelon diet instead.
Watermelon Diet
The watermelon diet encourages you to eat as much as a pound of watermelon as often as five times per day. Proponents of this fad diet cite overweight, circulatory problems, nephritis, gout and liver problems among the conditions it can cure. As with most fad diets, these claims are not supported by clinical trials.
Cholesterol Basics
Your body makes harmful LDL cholesterol when you eat foods containing saturated fats. HDL cholesterol, produced when you eat unsaturated fats, can help your heart health by cleaning the LDL out of your bloodstream. Your total cholesterol count, as measured by a doctor, takes both kinds into account by subtracting your HDL count from your LDL count.
Watermelon and Fat
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a cup of watermelon contains virtually no fat. This makes a watermelon diet unlikely to stimulate your body to produce any significant amount of LDL or HDL cholesterol.
Lycopene
Lycopene is a carotonid -- a kind of micronutrient Dr. Stephen Pratt of the Superfoods movement reports may reduce your levels of LDL cholesterol. It does this by interfering with your absorption of fat, and possibly by helping your body's natural cleansing processes. Watermelons are rich in lycopene, though not as rich as tomatoes or apricots.
Triglycerides
Trigylcerides are not technically cholesterol, but they have the same effect on your circulatory health as LDL and are counted when your doctor measures your cholesterol levels. Your body produces trigylcerides in response to sugar in your diet, and watermelons are very high in sugar for a fruit. Eating a lot of watermelon may raise your total cholesterol count because of this.
Bottom Line
The watermelon diet is a classic fad diet. It recommends extreme consumption of a single food as a way to reach your health goals. Like all fad diets, it might have some beneficial effects -- but those effects will not be nearly as powerful as adopting a balanced and systematic approach to your nutrition.
References
- "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"; Walter Willett, et. al; 2004
- CDC: About Cholesterol
- The Real Diet: Low Cholesterol Diet: Watermelon Diet
- U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
- "Superfoods Rx"; Dr. Stephen Pratt; 2006
