This past weekend my parents came to visit me and with them they brought fresh apples (yum!). As they were leaving my room to go home my dad said to me, “remember to eat your apples, because one a day keeps the doctor away.” This led me to question, does fruit help keep the doctor away? Well according to a large, seven-year study, the answer could be yes.
Dr. Huaidong Du from Oxford presented study that involved almost half a million people concluded that daily fruit consumption can cut the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) by 40 percent at the European Society of Cardiology.
The participants from Chine Kadoorie Biobank consisted of 451,681 participants with no history of CVD and were not taking any medication for hypertension. Then participants fruit intake was recorder and categorized under never, monthly, 1-3 days per week, 4-6 days per week, or daily. They found that 18 percent of participants consumed fruit daily and 6.3 never consumed fruit. The average daily portion was 1.5.
They found that overall the risk of CVD was reduced by 25 to 40 percent for participants who ate fruit daily. They found that eating fruit also lowers blood pressure. With further studying, they found that wily fruit consumption was associated with a lower systolic blood pressure and lower diastolic blood pressure in comparison to people who did not eat fruit.
In a separate analysis, overall mortality was looked at in comparison to fruit consumption in 61,000 patients who had been excluded from the study due to CVD and hypertension. In this group, daily consumption reduced overall risk of death by 32 percent compared to people who did not eat fruit.
It can be concluded that the results were not due to reverse causation because having CVD would not most likely cause you to eat more fruit. The study is also very specific to China because all the patients were taken from there. This could mean that daily fruit consumption is better for everyone in the world. Lastly, there could be a confounding variable. Because the study focused on all fruits, it could be one specific fruit that is helping with cardiovascular disease. For example, it may just be apples that help or oranges. But because the study was so large and just daily fruit consumption in general was recorded, it is hard to be specific as to what is lowering the risk of disease and lowering blood pressure.
However, for now I will continue eating my apples just for the simple fact that they are good!
Sources:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/study-finds-eating-fruit-reduces-heart-disease-article-1.1926024
http://superfreshgrowers.com/blog/2013/9/do-apples-give-you-more-energy-cup-coffee
When it comes to replacing an apple with a sugary beverage than an apple a day may just keep the doctor away. Research says that an apple provides as much energy as a cup of coffee, while remaining more sustainable as well. If you put in as much sugar and cream as I do in your average cup of coffee than it is likely that this replacement will surely provide health benefits.
When I was younger my parents used to tell me “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” but I never really thought to look into this catchy saying. With this study it could very well be due to a confounding variable. The people that consumed fruit daily could have had a better diet overall. Also because this was not a blind study, there could be some bias from the subject. If they assume that fruit will help reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease they are more likely to consume more fruit. I was also confused as to how doctors know that a person’s risk, for example, is reduced by 30%? How exactly is that determined? Also if this study was meant to find a correlation between apples and health, why is the fruit consumption not limited to apples only?
I’ve always wanted to do more research on this topic because it is a quite frequent saying. Fruit is definitely healthy for you but how much you eat is what you have to watch. Fruit contains natural sugars which are great for your health especially compared to artificial sugars. Everything you eat affects your health in some minor way, but when you put everything together it makes your health either a huge improvement or downfall. Here is a good article on which fruits help what http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/fruits-improve-heart-function-3594.html.