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Health & Nutrition

• Apple-eaters have a significantly reduced risk of stroke...
• Red Delicious apples packed with disease fighting antioxidants
• Apple A Day Keeps Breast Cancer Away

APPLE-EATERS HAVE A SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED RISK OF STROKE...

APPLE-EATERS have a significantly reduced risk of stroke, say Finnish researchers who studied more than 9,000 men and women over a 28 year period, reports HealthScout, a Web-based health service.

Apples happen to be rich in quercetin, a member of a group of antioxidant substances called flavonoids. The researchers hoped to explore a link between stroke risk and overall dietary intake of quercetin, one of the antioxidant substances called flavonoids that is also found in onions and other fruits and vegetables. No such relationship turned up.

The link between apple consumption and decreased stroke risk remained, however.

The apples protective effect was "apparently not attributable to quercetin and may result from other substances in the fruit or simply to a lifestyle associated with apple intake," researchers say. Their findings appear in the current European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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RED DELICIOUS APPLES PACKED WITH DISEASE FIGHTING ANTIOXIDANTS

25/05/2005 - Consumers and food makers looking to pack an antioxidant punch should plump for specific varieties of apples, say scientists, reports Lindsey Partos.

Apples, and especially apple peels, have been found to have a potent antioxidant activity (scavenges free radicals) that can inhibit the growth of cancer cells, with the antioxidant activity of one apple equivalent to about 1500 mg of vitamin C.

And recent animal and cell culture studies suggest there is an association between polyphenolic compounds found in apples and a wide variety of effects that may help prevent chronic disease. This supports the hypothesis that it is the phytochemicals found in fruits, especially apples, that impart healthy benefits.

Red Delicious, Northern Spy and Ida Red have more potent disease-fighting antioxidants reflected in higher levels of polyphenol activity, claim researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that tested a variety of different species.

Polyphenols — phytochemicals that act like astringents — are major sources of antioxidants in apples, but which polyphenols are most active in the fruit has perplexed scientists.

Study leader Rong Tsao and colleagues used three different laboratory measures to evaluate polyphenol activity in apples that are popular in Canada: Red Delicious, McIntosh, Cortland, Northern Spy, Ida Red, Golden Delicious, Mutsu and Empire apples.

All of the apples used in the study were grown on the same farm under similar conditions.

They found that polyphenols were five times more prevalent in the skin than the flesh of the apples and that two polyphenols, epicatechin and procyanidin B2, were the greatest contributors to total antioxidant activity of the apples.

Procyanidins accounted for about 60 per cent of the antioxidant activity in the peel and 56 per cent in the flesh.

Red Delicious apples had two times more antioxidant activity than Empire apples, which had the least activity of any of the apples studied.

“When taste and texture do not matter, choosing an apple with a high proportion of polyphenols in the flesh and skin can potentially produce more health benefits,” Tsao said, publishing the findings in the 29 June issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

This latest research joins a growing body of evidence to suggest populations looking to improve health should consume more apples.

Researchers at Cornell University in New York, for example, recently suggested apples could fight the neurodegenerative disease Alzheimer’s disease.

In rats, quercetin - another potent antioxidant abundant in apples - appears to protect brain cells against oxidative stress, a tissue–damaging process associated with Alzheimer’s.

Apples still remain one of the most popular fruits for European consumers that crunch their way through about 20 kilos of apples a year, about 1.5 apples a day, compared to the US counterpart who eats about 9 kilos a year, one every four days.

In terms of production, China has emerged in the last few years as the single largest processor of apples in the world.

Industry observers attribute the success of the Chinese sector to a huge apple crop that now exists there, which at some 20 million tonnes per annum dwarfs all other producers, and makes the Chinese apple sector around five times the size of the US industry and ten times bigger than the largest EU based producers, such as France and Italy.

Source: Food Navigator.com

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APPLE A DAY KEEPS BREAST CANCER AWAY

March 1, 2005 - An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away – at least in rats, according to a study by food scientists at Cornell University. "We found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day, respectively, over 24 weeks," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and lead author of the study.

The Cornell researchers treated a group of rats with a known mammary carcinogen and then fed them either whole apple extracts or control extracts. Liu, who says this is the first study of the effects of apples on cancer prevention in animals, also found that the number of tumors was reduced by 25, 25 and 61 percent in rats fed, respectively, the equivalent of one, three or six apples a day.

The report is published online - Click Here  - and will be published later this month in theJournal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In an article in the journal Nature five years ago, Liu and his colleagues credited phytochemicals -- antioxidants -- in fresh apples with inhibiting human liver and colon cancer cell growth. Antioxidants help prevent cancer by mopping up cell-damaging free radicals and inhibiting the production of reactive substances that could damage normal cells.

"Studies increasingly provide evidence that it is the additive and synergistic effects of the phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables that are responsible for their potent antioxidant and anticancer activities," Liu says.

"Our findings suggest that consumers may gain more significant health benefits by eating more fruits and vegetables and whole grain foods than in consuming expensive dietary supplements, which do not contain the same array of balanced, complex components," says Liu.

He notes that the thousands of phytochemicals in foods vary in molecular size, polarity and solubility, which could affect how they are absorbed and distributed in different cells, tissues and organs. "This balanced natural combination of phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables cannot simply be mimicked by dietary supplements," he explains.

Furthermore, Liu notes that the health benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables extend beyond lowering the risk of developing cancers and cardiovascular diseases to include preventive

effects for other chronic diseases, such as cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, central neurodegenerative disease and diabetes.

Says David R. Jacobs, professor in the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota: "Dr. Liu is in the forefront of a group of investigators, including myself, who find extensive evidence that extremely important health aspects of food work through the combination of substances that make up that food, a concept we call food synergy. Risk of many chronic diseases in modern life appears to be reduced by whole foods, but not by isolated large doses of selected food compounds. Dr. Liu's current work on apples and breast tumors in rats is a perfect example of this principle."

The study, which was coauthored by Jiaren Liu, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell, and Bingqing Chen of Harbin Medical University, China, was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Federal Formula Funds, the U.S. Apple Association and the Apple Products Research and Education Council.

Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites provide additional information on this news release. Some might not be part of the Cornell University community, and Cornell has no control over their content or availability.

Source: SeniorJournal.com

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