apple a day keeps disease at bay ...

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Apple a day keeps disease at bay, especially if it's Red Delicious

 

Some varieties carry a healthier punch than others, study shows

 

SCRIPPS HOWARD

OTTAWA, Ont. -- Some apples may serve up more health ben­efits than

others, new research indicates.

 

Canadian researchers ana­lyzing eight popular varieties found that the

old standby, Red Delicious, and an apple called Northern Spy contain more

disease-fighting antioxidants in their skin and flesh than any other

studied.

 

Red Delicious had more than twice the antioxidant activity as Empires,

which had the least activity of the eight.

 

" Choosing an apple with a high proportion of polyphenols [natural

chemicals that cause tissue to contract] in the flesh and skin can

potentially produce more health benefits, " said Rong Tsao, lead author of

the study appearing in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry on

June 29.

 

Mr. Tsao, a researcher at Ag­riculture and Agri-Food Canada in Guelph,

Ont., and colleagues at the government agency also pinpointed the

individual com­pounds most responsible for an­tioxidant activity in

apples. Their findings could lead to breeding of hybrid apples that pack

an even more potent punch.

 

Researchers have known for some time that apples are a good source of

antioxidants, chemicals that neutralize unstable molecules in cells.

These molecules, called free radicals, are thought to play a role in

development of heart disease and prostate, colon, and other cancers.

Polyphenyls are a major source of antioxidants in apples, but researchers

have not been sure just which of these chemicals are most active. Riu Hai

Liu of Cornell University found in an earlier study that 100 grams of

apple provides the same amount of antioxidant activity as taking 1,500

milligrams of vitamin C, but that vitamin is present in apples in only

small amounts.

 

Mr. Tsao and his team used three 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. All the apples used in the study were grown on the

same Ontario farm under similar conditions.

 

Because the lab focused on locally grown fruits, the study left out

several apple varieties popular in the United States, including Gala,

Granny Smith, Jonathan, York, Stayman, and Rome.

 

The researchers found that polyphenols were five times more prevalent in

the skin than the flesh of the apples. Northern Spy had a little less of

the com­pounds in its skin than Red Deli­cious, but about twice as much

in the flesh of the fruit as Red D.

 

The scientists found that two polyphenols, called epicatechin and

procyaniden B2, were the greatest contributors to antioxi­dant activity,

Other recent research has shown that antioxidants found in apple extracts

could lower levels of " bad " cholesterol in the blood, and that rats fed

the human equivalent of up to six apples a day for six weeks were as much

as 44 percent less likely to develop breast tumors.

 

Another Cornell study, pub­lished in December, reported that the apple

antioxidant quer­cetin appeared to protect rats' brain cells from a

tissue-dam­aging process associated with Alzheimer's disease and other

degenerative brain diseases.