Yahoo Lifestyle An Apple-a-Day for Excellent Health
Adapted from The Doctors Book of Food Remedies: order your copy today
Apples are more than just a wholesome snack. Studies suggest that eating apples can help reduce the risk of heart disease, and they may also help protect you from lung cancer. In addition, they may lower your risk of asthma and improve your over- all lung function. Indeed, it appears that having an apple or two a day really can help keep the doctor away.
Filled with Antioxidants
Some of the most powerful disease-fighting components in apples are phenolics, and they’ve been getting a lot of research attention lately. Phenolics are a type of phytochemical that can act as powerful antioxidants, neutralizing free radicals before they have the chance to harm your DNA and other important components within your body.
Research conducted by scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Seoul University in South Korea found that these phenolics, rather than the vitamin C in the fruit, may provide the bulk of apples’ antioxidant power.
Other research from Cornell set out to rank the total phenolic content in many popular fruits. Apples came in second place, behind the cranberry, and beat out other favorites such as the red grape, strawberry, pineapple, banana, peach, lemon, orange, pear, and grapefruit. This study also found that apples had the second highest total antioxidant activity of these fruits.
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Doctor’s Top Tip
Put away the peeler, and eat your apples with the peel intact. “The peel contains three- quarters of the fibre and most of the antioxidants in the apple,” says Wendy Davis, RD, director of communications and consumer health for the US Apple Association. Cornell University food scientists who tested four varieties of apples found that the peels better inhibited the growth of cancer cells than the rest of the apple. As a result, apple peels “may impart health benefits when consumed and should be regarded as a valu- able source of antioxidants,” the researchers wrote.
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
The phytochemicals lurking in apples may make them useful tools in warding off heart disease. A study that followed almost 40,000 women for about 7 years associated apples with a 13 to 22 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
Research from Finland has found that intake of flavonoids—a type of phenolic found in apples—was inversely associated with death from heart disease in women. Data gathered from the same group of people also found that those who ate the most apples had a lower risk of a type of stroke than the people who ate the fewest apples.
Keeping Cancer Away
Apples may also be helpful in warding off the dreaded disease of lung cancer. A study involving more than 120,000 men and women found that women who ate at least one serving of apples or pears daily had a lower risk of this form of cancer.
A Hawaiian study looking at the diet history of 582 people who had lung cancer and 582 without the disease found that the people who ate the most apples, onions, and white grapefruit had roughly half the risk of lung cancer than those who ate the least amounts of these foods. Apples and onions are both high in quercetin. In another study, Finnish researchers found that men who consumed more quercetin were 60 percent less likely to have lung cancer than men with lower quercetin intakes.
READ MORE: The New Superfruits
Apples’ Effect on Lung Problems
Apples may also help reduce your risk of asthma and improve your lung health. An Australian study involving 1,600 adults associated apple and pear consumption with a lower risk of asthma. Finnish researchers—who seem to be pretty busy when it comes to studying apples—found fewer cases of asthma among people with high levels of quercetin in their diets.
And a study of more than 13,000 adults in the Netherlands found that those who ate more apples and pears had better lung function and less chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Maintaining Digestive Health with Apple Fibre
Recent discoveries aside, apples are also excellent sources of fibre. They contain both soluble and insoluble fibre, including pectin.
Insoluble fibre, found mostly in the skin, is the kind that we used to call roughage, which has long been recommended for relieving constipation. More is at stake, though, than just comfort. Studies show that a smoothly operating digestive tract can help prevent diverticulosis, a condition in which small pouches form in the large intestine, and also cancer of the colon. Plus, insoluble fibre is filling, which is why apples are such an excellent weight-control food for people who want to lose weight without feeling hungry.
The soluble fibre in apples, which is the same kind that is found in oat bran, acts differently from the insoluble kind. Rather than passing through the digestive tract more or less unchanged, soluble fibre forms a gel-like material in the digestive tract that helps lower cholesterol and, with it, the risk of heart disease and stroke.
It’s not just the soluble fibre that’s so helpful, but a particular type of soluble fiber called pectin. The same ingredient used to thicken jellies and jams, pectin appears to reduce the amount of cholesterol produced in the liver. An average-size apple contains 0.7 gram of pectin, more than the amount in strawberries and bananas.
Adapted from The Doctors Book of Food Remedies: order your copy today
