Scientists from Université Laval in Canada found that drinking apple juice may benefit heart health.
Fruits and vegetable intake is beneficial for heart disease prevention.
Previous research has found that many biologically active components in fruits and vegetables can help prevent a various range of chronic diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
Apples are a good example of a fruit that has caught the attention of researchers for several reasons.
Besides being very accessible, versatile, and inexpensive, apples have a high nutritional value and contain a wide variety of bioactive components, making them a fruit of interest.
Many studies have reported the benefits of apple intake on the heart and metabolic health and chronic disease prevention.
But fewer reports have examined whether apples consumed in different forms, like apple juice, pomace, cider, vinegar, and others, exert the same beneficial effects as whole fruits.
Drinking juice may be a convenient way to obtain the health effects of the bioactive components in apples.
One study analyzed data from the 2013–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
It showed that 100% of fruit juice drinkers had a 10% higher Healthy Eating Index 2015 score compared to non-consumers as well as higher intakes of vitamins C and D, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and energy.
In the current review, researchers aimed to summarize the published findings on the health benefits of apple juice as reported in clinical studies in humans.
They included 20 interventional clinical studies in the review.
Overall, the team found apple juice intake was linked to several markers of heart health that may be relevant for cancer and brain diseases in older people.
Most of the published findings were found regarding oxidative stress, as well as observations with other parameters such as markers of inflammation, lipid profile, and diabetes.
The researchers suggest that drinking apple juice in moderation can have positive effects on heart disease risk (particularly in reducing oxidative stress).
The research was published in Nutrients and conducted by Bastien Vallée Marcotte et al.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how drinking milk affects the risks of heart disease and cancer, and herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm.
For more information about heart health, please see recent studies about how espresso coffee affects your cholesterol level, and results showing Vitamin K2 could help reduce heart disease risk.
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