Apples Pack More Punch

By: Jean Carper

An apple a day also may keep away memory loss, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and tooth loss. Crisp, new details:

Memory. Drinking 2 cups of apple juice or eating two to three apples a day may boost production of acetylcholine, often lacking in Alzheimer's patients. When University of Massachusetts Lowell researchers gave apple juice concentrate to elderly mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, they did better on learning maze tests and had more acetylcholine.
Cancer. An Italian study showed that eating at least an apple a day cut risk of cancer of the mouth and pharynx by 21%; esophagus, 25%; colon, 20%; breast, 18%; ovaries, 15%; prostate, 9%.
Asthma. Apples are rich in an antioxidant called apigenin that, in animal tests in Japan, suppressed responses leading to asthma and allergies. Apigenin also is found in beans, broccoli, celery, cherries, grapes, onions and parsley.
Diabetes. Harvard investigators found that women who ate an apple a day were 28% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who ate none.
Heart. Eating apples may help stifle blood clots and plaque in arteries, which lead to heart disease. Example: Eating two more apples or 11/2 cups of 100% apple juice a day slowed changes in bad LDL cholesterol that contribute to artery-clogging plaque, says University of California-Davis research. And European studies suggest less fatal heart disease and 40% fewer strokes in apple eaters.
Teeth. Harvard epidemiologists say men who stopped eating apples were more apt to lose their teeth.

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