TORONTO - The conventional wisdom about an apple a day keeping the doctor away is getting some added heft from a study of women who snacked on dried apples every day for a year.
The heart-healthy results presented at the Experimental Biology conference in Washington on Tuesday might provide encouragement to anyone trying to get their bad cholesterol levels under control, or even shed a few pounds.
Researchers at Florida State University randomly assigned 160 women aged 45 to 65 to eat either 75 grams of dried apples or 100 grams of prunes each day for a year. The snacks worked out to 240 calories a day for each woman. Otherwise, the women were instructed not to meddle with their normal eating patterns.
Blood samples were taken at three, six and 12 months, and it didn't take long for a change to show up in the women assigned to eat apples.
"To my surprise, in less than six months, it decreased LDL cholesterol 23 per cent and increased HDL a little bit more than three per cent — three to four per cent. So that's incredible," said co-author Bahram Arjmandi of the university's Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences.
Will apples keep heart doctor away? Consumption lowers bad cholesterol
