Apples Could Protect Against Alzheimer and Parkinson's Disease Cornell Studies Find

Cornell Study Published November 18, 2004

  A group of chemicals in apples could protect the brain from the type of damage that triggers such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinsonism, according to two new studies from Cornell University food scientists. The studies show that the chemical quercetin, a so-called phytonutrient, appears to be largely responsible for protecting rat brain cells when assaulted by oxidative stress in laboratory tests. Phytonutrients, such as phenolic acids and flavanoids, protect the apple against bacteria, viruses and fungi and provide the fruit's anti-oxidant and anti- cancer benefits. Quercetin is a major flavanoid in apples.
  Antioxidants help prevent cancer by mopping up cell-damaging free radicals and inhibiting the production of reactive substances that could damage normal cells.  "The studies show that additional apple consumption not only may help reduce the risk of cancer, as previous studies have shown, but also that an apple a day may supply major bioactive compounds, which may play an important role in reducing the risk of neurodegenerative disorders," says Chang Y. "Cy" Lee, Cornell professor of food science at the university's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. In a study that recently appeared online and is to be published in the November/December 2004 issue of the Journal of Food Science (69(9): S357-60), Lee and his co-authors compared how two groups of rat neuronal cells fared against hydrogen peroxide, a common oxidative stressor. Only one of the two groups was pretreated with different concentrations of apple phenolic extracts.  The researchers found that the higher the concentration of apple phenolic extract, the greater the protection was for the nerve cells against oxidative stress.

"What we found was that the apple phenolics, which are naturally occurring antioxidants found in fresh apples, can protect nerve cells from neurotoxicity induced by oxidative stress," Lee said.

"Indeed, I have a reason to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away," he says.

Disease-fighting chemicals in apples could reduce the risk of breast cancer, Cornell study suggests.

ITHACA, N.Y. — An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away, according to a study in
rats by food scientists at Cornell University.

“We found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day, respectively, over 24 weeks,” says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and lead author of the study.

“Studies increasingly provide evidence that it is the additive and synergistic effects of the phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables that are responsible for their potent antioxidant and anticancer activities,” Liu says.

“Our findings suggest that consumers may gain more significant health benefits by eating more fruits and vegetables and whole grain foods than in consuming expensive dietary supplements, which do not contain the same array of balanced, complex components,” says Liu.

Says David R. Jacobs, professor in the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota: “Dr. Liu is in the forefront of a group of investigators, including myself, who find extensive evidence that extremely important health aspects of food work through the combination of substances that make up that food, a concept we call food synergy. Risk of manychronic diseases in modern life appears to be reduced by whole foods, but not by isolated large doses of selected food compounds. Dr. Liu’s current work on apples and breast tumors in rats is a perfect example of this principle.”