An Apple a Day Does Keep the Doctor Away

Photo courtesy: Flickr/multisanti/CC BY 2.0

Few fruits have the same mystique as the apple, which is curious given its ubiquitous presence in our lives. Now it turns out that Aphrodite’s favorite fruit – the edible pome that provided eternal youth for Norse gods, had a starring role in the Garden of Eden, wreaked havoc for young Snow White, and has become the cult icon for hip tech geeks everywhere – may also save your heart.

In a new study of healthy adults, the simple act of eating an apple a day for four weeks lowered blood levels of oxidized LDL (“bad” cholesterol), which has been linked to hardening of the arteries. The decrease was significant: 40 percent.

"When LDL becomes oxidized, it takes on a form that begins atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries," said lead researcher Robert DiSilvestro, professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University and a researcher at the university's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. "We got a tremendous effect against LDL being oxidized with just one apple a day for four weeks."

Amazingly, the difference was similar to that found between people with normal coronary arteries versus those with coronary artery disease, he said. DiSilvestro noted that an apple a day was significantly more effective at decreasing oxidized LDL than other antioxidants he has studied, including superstar antioxidants like the spice-based compound curcumin, green tea and tomato extract.

The research was funded by the apple industry, which always makes me wonder, but it's not the first study to find significant salubrious benefits in apples. The study is online in the Journal of Functional Foods and will appear in a future print edition.

Note: Skip the poison apples in favor of organic ones. Apples are the number one offender on the 12 Most Toxic Fruits and Vegetables list.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Photo courtesy: FooteFamilyFarm

We have a common expression in North America: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." The fruit is certainly a healthy snack; but, now there's new evidence that a chemical concentrated in apple skin may prevent muscle weakening.

Researcher Dr. Chris Adams of the University of Iowa and his colleagues added the chemical, called ursolic acid, to food given to laboratory mice. He says, "And what we found was they got bigger muscles."

"They got muscle growth and they got stronger. But what was even maybe more interesting was that, even though the muscles were getting bigger, the mice weren't gaining weight." What Adams really wanted to know was what effect ursolic acid would have in cases of muscle wasting.

Muscle atrophy, as it's also known, is a common result of starvation and a number of very serious diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and AIDS. "But even though muscle atrophy is a very, very common and very serious, we don't have a medicine for it. And so that was our goal with these studies...to try and address that problem," Adams says.

In another part of the experiment, mice were put on reduced rations, which causes some muscle atrophy. The mice that had ursolic acid added to their diet regained more muscle mass than a control group that didn't get the supplement. "And it did this by helping two hormones that our bodies use to build muscle. And so by helping those hormones, ursolic acid reduced muscle wasting."

Adams said his team hasn't yet investigated whether ursolic acid would prevent muscle wasting; and, he stresses that his research on mice may not apply to humans at all.

But there's reason to believe it might. Ursolic acid, which is found in the skin of pears, some berries, and apples, is also found in herbs used by some traditional healers in Asia and South America to treat diabetes. In their experiments, the researchers injected mice with ursolic acid, which significantly reduced their blood sugar, a basic marker for diabetes.

Chris Adams and his colleagues at University of Iowa and the veteran's hospital in Iowa City published their findings in the journal Cell Metabolism.