Last year, it was called the ‘gold apple’ due to the decrease in production. This year, the harvest is good and the price is expected to recover to the average year. The most beloved fruit of Koreans. Apples that turn orchards red everywhere are a blessing with many health benefits. There is even a Western proverb that says, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’
Apples are rich in dietary fiber, a type of complex carbohydrate that our bodies cannot digest on their own. Dietary fiber serves as food for many species of bacteria that live in our gut. These bacteria have a powerful effect on our health, from cancer risk to weight and mood.
Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, including apples, can increase the number of good bacteria in the gut and decrease the number of bad bacteria, which can lead to improved overall health, Dr. Marie van der Merwe, a nutritional scientist at the University of Memphis, told the New York Times on the 23rd (local time).
Apples themselves also contain a lot of beneficial bacteria. This is true for all fruits and vegetables, but one study found that apples have a greater variety of bacteria than most fruits. A study from the Technical University of Graz in Austria found that a single apple (the Alet variety, grown locally) contained about 90 million beneficial bacteria. When you eat an apple, some of these bacteria can become part of your microbiome.
Dr. van der Merwe explains that apples “act not only as prebiotics (low-molecular-weight fibers that are not broken down by digestive enzymes in the stomach and intestines) but also as probiotics (beneficial bacteria).”
Apples are also good for your heart health.
Apples are loaded with pectin, a dietary fiber that helps maintain healthy cholesterol levels. In a 2012 study, 160 postmenopausal women ate 75 grams of dried apples (about two medium-sized apples) or prunes every day for a year. After six months, the women who ate apples had a 13 percent drop in total cholesterol and a 24 percent drop in “bad” LDL cholesterol. The women who ate prunes, on the other hand, had a 3.5 percent drop in total cholesterol and an 8 percent drop in LDL cholesterol, which was less than the apples.
Apples are also a major source of polyphenols, health-promoting substances that plants produce to protect themselves from the outside environment. Since polyphenols are mainly distributed in the skin, it is best to eat apples with the skin. In particular, certain polyphenols contained in apples, called flavonoids, are particularly effective in dilating blood vessels by stimulating the production of nitric oxide, which flows through the blood vessels. This is good for blood pressure, Dr. Nicola Bondonno, a postdoctoral researcher at the Danish Cancer Research Institute, told The New York Times. He has co-authored several research papers on apples.
Apples are also effective in reducing chronic inflammation.
Apple polyphenols may help reduce inflammation and, as a result, disease risk.
A study published in August by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, UK, analyzed health data from more than 119,000 people collected over nearly 20 years (including records of everything they ate over a 24-hour period surveyed five times), and found that people who reported eating two or more apples a day on their food records were 30 percent less likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease later in life. “Eating as little as half an apple a day could have a beneficial effect,” said study co-author Adeene Cassidy, chair of the Department of Nutrition and Preventive Medicine. The study found that the link between apples and the risk of COPD was also associated with a reduction in inflammatory markers.
Dr. Bondonno of the Danish Cancer Research Institute explains that apples are most nutritious when eaten with the skin on. This is because the skin contains powerful polyphenols and a lot of fiber. Dr. Bondonno adds that the skin should be washed thoroughly to remove any residual pesticides.
In general, the darker the apple, the richer it is in polyphenols, Dr. van der Merwe said. Anthocyanins, the substances that make apples red, are a type of polyphenol, and a diet rich in anthocyanins has been shown to be effective in improving heart health and is currently being studied in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
But it’s more important to get as many polyphenols as possible by eating a variety of apple varieties rather than just picking out dark red ones, says Dr. van der Merwe. There are 8,000 polyphenols that have been identified in fruits and plants so far.
Reporter Park Hae-sik, Donga.com [email protected]
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2024-09-25 17:07:10