Red Delicious, Northern Spy and Ida Red apples benefit most
Contain a greater amount of disease-fighting antioxidants than other apples, say researchers.
25/05/05 Some apples might do a better job of keeping the doctor away than others, according to Canadian researchers who analyzed eight popular varieties of the fruit. Red Delicious, Northern Spy and Ida Red, they say, pack a greater wallop of disease-fighting antioxidants than other apples studied.
The researchers, led by Rong Tsao, Ph.D., of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Guelph, Ontario, also pinpointed the individual chemical compounds responsible for antioxidant activity in apples. The findings could lead to the breeding of hybrid apples that pack a heftier antioxidant punch.
The report appears in the June 29 issue of the American Chemical Society’s peer-reviewed Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. ACS is the world’s largest scientific society.
Researchers have long known that apples are a good source of antioxidants, a group of chemicals that scavenge and neutralize unstable molecules called free radicals. Free radicals, which can wreak havoc on cells and tissues, appear to play a role in the onset of heart disease and prostate, colon and other cancers.
Red Delicious apples had two times more antioxidant activity than Empire apples, which had the least activity of any of the apples studied.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than 158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
