Eat apples, watermelon to protect against heart disease

The old saying that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” may be truer than previously thought. Scientists, in a new study, have discovered that taking just two apples a day could protect against heart disease by cutting down on cholesterol levels, a blood chemical that hardens blood vessel.

In a study of healthy, middle-aged adults, scientists found out that consumption of one apple a day for four weeks lowered by 40 per cent the blood’s bad cholesterol blood (low-density lipoprotein). ‘Bad’ cholesterol furs up arteries and raises the risk of a life-threatening clot forming near the heart or brain.

The researchers, wanting to see if eating the equivalent of two apples every day could have a significant effect on heart disease risk, recruited 160 women between 2007 and 2009 who had been through the menopause. They got half to eat 75 grammes a day of dried apple, the equivalent of two medium-sized fresh apples.

As a comparison, the other half were told to eat the same quantity of prunes to see if they had a similar effect. Prunes lowered cholesterol levels slightly but not to the same extent as the dried apple. Each volunteer underwent blood tests every three months for one year. 

All the women, of course, were not using hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and had not received any other drug treatments, including cholesterol-lowering medications, for at least the past three months. Also excluded were women who were heavy smokers or who had chronic disease, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The results, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics demonstrated that after three months, the total cholesterol levels in the apple-eating group had reduced by nine per cent and LDL cholesterol by 16 per cent. 

After six months, levels were even lower, with total cholesterol down by 13 per cent and LDL levels dropping by 24 per cent. There was no further decline in the remaining six months of the experiment.

Though within their group the women eating the apple had greater reductions in their cholesterol, the only significant difference between the groups was a greater reduction in total cholesterol at the six-month time point only.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, eating a lot of fruit, vegetables and whole grains is to curb bad cholesterol, thus preventing heart problems. Fibre in apples and other fruits such as mango, garden eggs, okra as well as vegetables helps to prevent heart disease by lowering cholesterol levels. 

Scientists, who carried out the research on why eating fruits daily can help prevent or reduce the risk of death from heart disease, said people who eat 10 grammes of fibre daily, reduce their risk of heart attack by 14 per cent and their risk of dying from coronary heart disease by 27 per cent. This was published in the journal, Archives of Internal Medicine.