How healthy are apples?

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Rich in fibre and polyphenols, apples can boost gut bacteria and improve heart health. Photo / 123rf
Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away?
“An apple a day” might seem like overkill, but the popular fruit is packed with health benefits. Here’s what nutrition experts have to say about apples.

Apples are rich in dietary
fibre, a type of complex carbohydrate that our body isn’t capable of digesting on its own. That fibre acts as food for many of the bacteria species that reside in our guts. These bacteria have a powerful impact on our health, affecting everything from cancer risk, to weight, to mood.

A diet high in fruits and vegetables, including apples, has been shown to increase the number of beneficial bacteria and decrease the number of harmful bacteria in people’s guts, said Marie van der Merwe, a nutrition scientist at the University of Memphis. That could lead to better overall health, van der Merwe said.
In addition, apples themselves contain a host of beneficial bacteria. (While this is true for all fruits and vegetables, one study found that apples have a greater variety of bacteria than most.) When you eat an apple, some of those bacteria may become part of your microbiome. The apple is “acting like a probiotic in addition to acting like a prebiotic,” van der Merwe explained.
Apples have high amounts of pectin, a dietary fibre that can help you maintain healthy cholesterol levels. In a 2012 study, 160 postmenopausal women ate either 75g of dried apples (equal to about two medium-sized apples) or prunes every day for one year. After six months, the women who consumed apples experienced a 13% drop in their total cholesterol and a 24% drop in “bad” LDL cholesterol, while the women who ate prunes experienced a 3.5% drop in total cholesterol and an 8% drop in LDL cholesterol.
Apples are also one of the biggest dietary sources of polyphenols – tiny, health-promoting molecules that plants produce to defend themselves from the elements. Certain polyphenols in apples, called flavonoids, are particularly good at stimulating the production of nitric oxide, a gas that flows through our blood vessels, causing them to dilate. That’s good for blood pressure, said Nicola Bondonno, a postdoctoral researcher at the Danish Cancer Institute who has co-authored several studies on apples.
Polyphenols in apples can reduce inflammation – and, in turn, possibly help reduce disease risk. Researchers published a study in August that analysed health data from more than 119,000 people collected over nearly 20 years, including records of everything they ate over a 24-hour period on five separate occasions. The study found that those who reported eating more than two apples a day in the meal logs had a 30% lower chance of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease later on. “We saw benefits even at just half a serving a day,” said Aedin Cassidy, the chair of nutrition and preventive medicine at Queen’s University Belfast and a study co-author. The study found that the association between apples and COPD risk was also linked to a reduction in inflammatory markers.
Apples are most nutritious when you leave the skin on, Bondonno said: after all, it’s the skin that contains those powerful polyphenols (and much of the fibre). She added that you should wash apples thoroughly before eating them to avoid pesticide exposure.
In general, a darker colour apple will have a richer variety of polyphenols, van der Merwe said. But more important than selecting the deepest red apple you can find is eating different apple varieties, so you can absorb as many different polyphenols as possible, she said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Isobel Whitcomb
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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