Chronicle Online e-News
A fruit a day may keep Alzheimer's at bay, suggests new Cornell study
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Feb08/fruit.Alzhei
mers.sl.html
Feb. 6, 2008
By Susan Lang
ssl4@cornell.edu
Eating more apples, bananas and oranges just may help stave off such
neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, suggests a
new Cornell study published online in the Journal of Food Science.
When Chang Y. "Cy" Lee, Cornell professor and chair of food science
and technology at the university's New York State Agricultural
Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., and South Korean colleagues
exposed neurons (nerve cells) to apple, banana and orange extracts,
they found that the fruits' antioxidants, specifically the so-called
phenolic phytochemicals, prevented oxidative stress-induced toxicity
in the neurons.
"Many studies indicate that the brains of Alzheimer's patients are
subjected to increased oxidative stress ... and the resulting
cellular dysfunctions are widely believe to be responsible for the
nerve degeneration in these patients," said Lee.
Lee had reported in 2004 that similar chemicals in apples could
protect rat brain cells when assaulted by oxidative stress in
laboratory tests, and therefore, that apples might help prevent the
type of damage that triggers Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
"Since then, we received many requests (mostly from the general
public), asking about the potential benefits of other common fresh
fruits in our daily diet, such as oranges or bananas. To answer these
questions, we did some additional work," Lee said.
Unpeeled apples, he said, contain the highest content of protective
antioxidants, followed by bananas, then oranges. These foods are the
major fruits in Western and Asian diets.
"Our results suggest that fresh apples, banana and orange in our
daily diet along with other fruits may protect neuron cells against
oxidative stress-induced neurotoxicity and may play an important role
in reducing the risk of neurodegenerative disorders such as
Alzheimer's disease," Lee concluded.
In other work, Lee had found that plums, grapes and cherries also
have strong antioxidant activity and that apple phenolics inhibit
colon-cancer cell and liver-tumor cell proliferation in laboratory
tests.
The study was supported by Gyeongsang National University and the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Republic of Korea.
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