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Cornell Anti-Cancer
Findings
IT'S TRUE...AN APPLE A DAY
REALLY DOES KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY!
Cornell University food scientists have discovered that substances called phytochemicals, found primarily in the skin of New York apples, provide huge anti-oxidant and anti-cancer benefits.
The laboratory study, funded by the NY Apple Association and the NY Apple Research Development Program, was published in the June 22 issue of the journal Nature. The Cornell researchers found that eating 100 grams of a fresh NY apple with skin provided the total anti-oxidant and anti-cancer activity equal to 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C.
"Eating fruits and vegetables is better than taking a vitamin pill," said Rui Hai Liu, Cornell Assistant Professor of Food Science and lead author on the Nature article.
Although it has long been known that apples provide anti-oxidant and health benefits, "this concept is different," says Liu. "It demonstrates the anti-oxidant activity of fresh apples," since phytochemicals are found in higher concentrations in the apple skin.
An anti-oxidant is one of the many chemicals that reduce or prevent oxidation, thus preventing cell and tissue damage in the body.
"In this research, we have shown the importance of phytochemicals to human health," says Liu's collaborator, Chang Yong Lee, Cornell Professor of Food Science at the University's NY State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. "Some of the phytochemicals are known to be anti-allergenic, some are anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-proliferative. Now I have a reason to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away."
HOW THEY DID IT; WHAT THEY FOUND
The Cornell University Researchers, Rui Hai Liu and Chang Yong Lee used Red Delicious apples grown in NY State to provide the extracts to study to the effects of the phytochemicals.
The researchers compared that anti-cancer and anti-oxidant activity in the apple's flesh, and they also studied the fruit's skin.
Using colon cancer cells treated with the NY apple extract, the scientists found that cell proliferation was inhibited. Colon cancer cells treated with 50 milligrams of apple extract from the skins were inhibited by 43 percent. The apple flesh extract inhibited the colon cancer cells by 29 percent.
The researchers also tested the apple extract against human liver cancer cells. At 50 milligrams, the extract derived from the apples with the skins on inhibited those cancer cells by 57 percent, and the apple extract derived from the fruit's fleshy part inhibited the cancer cells by 40 percent.
"The consumption of whole fruits may provide the balanced anti-oxidants needed to quench reactive oxygen species," write the researchers in the Nature article. "Phytochemicals other than ascorbic acid (vitamin C)...contribute significantly to the anti-oxidant activity of apples and to the capacity to inhibit tumor cell proliferation.
Lee began studying the enzymatic browning action of
apples about 15 years ago, identifying a variety of a phenolic compounds and
learning how these chemicals work during the apple's browning action.
-- excerpted from the "Core Report," NY Apple Association, August 2000 edition. Reprinted on not-for-profit basis for information purposes only.