Publications
Partners
New research finds that older women who eat an apple a day are more than a third less likely to die than those that don’t.
Flavonoids remove free radicals
According to a report from The University of Western Australia, School of Medicine and Pharmacology, in Perth, they found that women who ate an apple every day had a 35% lower risk of dying than those who did not eat apples at all.
Lead scientist, Dr Jonathan Hodgson, said the team studied apples as they were the most commonly consumed fruits: “Apples also provide a significant contribution to a number of dietary factors that are thought to be important in relation to health – dietary fibre, flavonoids and vitamins like vitamin C, potassium and magnesium,” he said. His study looked at a group of 1,456 women, aged between 70 and 85, who were asked to regularly record their diets over a 15-year period.
Read: Fruit & veg fight cancer
Tru-Cape Quality Assurance Manager, and former university lecturer in apple biology, Henk Griessel, concurs: "We’ve always known that flavonoids like Quercetin Glycosides were beneficial because they act as an anti-oxidant and help to remove free radicals from the system, but here is proof that they are anti-ageing and life enhancing in a measurable way.
Strong levels of anti-oxidants
"Storing your apples in the fridge will keep them freshest for the longest period. Interestingly, our own research, albeit unverified, indicates that apples stored in controlled atmosphere conditions actually have higher levels of nutritionally beneficial ingredients because of the slow speed at which they develop. Red apples have a higher level than green apples do because of the colouring pigment but all apples have strong levels of anti-oxidants so are all good for you. The phenolic contents of the peels are higher than the flesh so they should be eaten with the skin on.”
Read: Antioxidants: top foods identified
Dr Hodgson was reported as saying that there could also be a link between women who eat fruit regularly living a healthier lifestyle overall. "We attempted to account for those factors," he said, adding: "There probably is an element not only of the components in the apples that are contributing, but also that apple intake is related to healthier lifestyle generally."
Read more:
Prepared by Brian Berkman Publicity for Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing
