It’s autumn, fall, the season for harvesting, and the time of year when apples come in season. There are over 7,500 cultivars, or varieties, of apple, each of them with their own textures, flavors, and uses. No matter what variety you pick or how you choose to eat them, apples all share a number of great health benefits. Here are four ways that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Apples Contain a Large Amount of Water
If you have trouble keeping up with your 8 to 10 glasses of water a day, eating apples can help. On average, about 80% of the mass of an apple is water. Water is vital to your body’s daily functioning – the human body can go three weeks without food, but less than three days without water. The sweet taste of apples and the variety of textures and flavors they come in makes taking your daily requirement for water just a bit sweeter.
Apples Can Lower Cholesterol and Help Reduce Weight
Fiber helps to block cholesterol re-absorption, allowing it to pass through the system instead of lingering inside the body. Due to their fiber content, apples aid in the regulation of bowel movements. One apple contains about 20% of the daily recommended amount of fiber intake (5 grams), so an apple a day delivers more fiber than many “high fiber” breakfast cereals. Because of their fiber content, apples can also serve as a weight loss aid by reducing the amount of consumed fat that is absorbed by your body. In addition, the fiber found in apples apples can help with weight loss and heart disease. To get the most fiber content, eat your apple with the peel, as two-thirds of the fiber content is found in an apple’s peel.
Apples Strengthen Bones
No, not due to calcium, but apples do contain other bone strengthening compounds. Phlorizin, a flavanoid found exclusively in apples, along with boron, can help post-menopausal women reduce the risks and complications of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a medical condition that causes the thinning of bone tissue and bone density, and it occurs when the body fails to produce enough new bone or the body absorbs too much of the old bone. Post-menopausal women are exceedingly susceptible to this. Boron and phlorizin may help protect these women from osteoporosis by aiding in the increase of bone density.
Apples Contain Cancer Fighting Antioxidants
Antioxidants and their cancer-fighting abilities have been quite the buzz lately, and though it may be humble, the apple contains many antioxidant compounds. Apples are especially rich in a flavinoid compound called quercetin. According to a medical study performed in Finland of almost 10,000 people over the course of 26 years, participants with the highest consumption of apples developed lung cancer at a rate of less than half that of their counterparts who ate few to no apples. A Cornell University study of the affects of apple consumption to breast cancer in rats found that rats who were fed three apples per day were 39 percent less likely to develop breast cancer.