YOU have heard it a thousand times: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
The proverbial advice to eat an apple a day is believed to have appeared in print first in 1866. The vague reason stated then was that apple eaters paid lesser visits to doctors than the non-apple eaters.
But what got me interested about apple was whether it could reverse my diminishing ability to recall words, including names of familiar friends and colleagues. Just recently, I called my friend Josil “Joel”. Am I treading the path to dementia, euphemistically called “senior moments”?
I have known of people who died of progressive memory loss – Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
There was a time when I consulted my sister Azucena, a physician, on what drug to take to prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD). I had heard about such anti-AD drugs as Alzhemed and Flurizan.
It was reassuring to hear from her that by writing daily for Panay News, I was on the right track of slowing down memory loss and that I was not yet an AD patient.
“Would an apple a day be good for me?”
“Yes,” she paraphrased the popular quotation, “an apple a day prevents memory loss.”
I thought she was joking until a few days later when she handed me a printed study on the memory-enhancing effects of apple done by a team of medical professors at the University of Massachusetts. The study was originally published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias.
The team led by Dr. Thomas Shea wrapped up their study with the conclusion that apples may really have huge health benefits, especially for folks fighting the effects of AD.
Dr. Shea, incidentally, is director of the university’s Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration. A leading pioneer on the subject, he has studied the brain-boosting effects of apples on brain health for over a decade.
Dr. Shea’s research team studied 21 patients between the ages of 72 and 93 who had moderate-to-severe AD. He gave them two four-ounce glasses of apple juice each day for a month. After just 30 days, his team noted major changes in mood and behavior. Changes included improvement in anxiety, depression and delusion.
“In addition to changes in memory, there’s a change in mood that often accompanies AD,” wrote Dr. Shea. “We found that people receiving apple juice displayed fewer of the symptoms. It kept their minds functioning at their best.”
Dr. Shea’s study also included testing mice in a series of maze trials. He gave them the equivalent of two glasses of apple juice each day for 30 days. He then put them through a series of traditional tests involving repetitious entries/exits through a maze together with “un-appled” mice. The mice that drank apple juice took less time to memorize the right exit points.
The results backed up his theory. The mice produced less “beta amyloid” – the protein fragment which forms “senile plaques” – which are often found in the brains of people with AD.
His team also proved beyond doubt that natural apple juice – not the synthetic canned ones – increases the production of a brain transmitter called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps slow the mental decline of people with AD.
A natural apple juice is a blend of the entire fruit parts, including its skin, core and crushed seeds that have the highest concentration of natural antioxidants.
Many other studies say that an effective brain-boosting plan should include antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies and fish rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
