A Comprehensive Review of Apples and Apple Components and Their Relationship to Human Health

Abstract

There has been an increasing appreciation and understanding of the link between dietary fruit and vegetable intake and improved health in humans. The widespread and growing intake of apples and apple juice/products and their rich phytochemical profile suggest their important potential to affect the health of the populations consuming them. This review summarizes current clinical, in vitro, and in vivo data and builds upon earlier published reports that apple may reduce the risk of chronic disease by various mechanisms, including antioxidant, antiproliferative, and cell signaling effects. Exposure to apples and apple products has been associated with beneficial effects on risk, markers, and etiology of cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and Alzheimer's disease. Recent work suggests that these products may also be associated with improved outcomes related to cognitive decline of normal aging, diabetes, weight management, bone health, pulmonary function, and gastrointestinal protection.

Effects of Ultrasound on Polyphenol Retention in Apples After the Application of Predrying Treatments in Liquid Medium

“…Many of them clearly identify the connection between the intake of fruit and vegetables and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, resulting from a high content of polyphenols (Knekt et al 2002;WHO 2003;Manach et al 2004;Hackman et al 2008;Link et al 2010;Hyson 2011). Among the species available in the temperate climatic zone, apples are one of the most often consumed, which makes them a vital source of bioactive compounds, especially polyphenols, offering well-documented health benefits (Hyson 2011;Francini and Sebastiani 2013).…”

Effects of Dietary Addition of a Low-Pectin Apple Fibre Preparation on Rats

“…In fresh apples, the soluble fi bre fraction, mainly pectins, represents around 50-30% of the overall fi bre content [Suni et al, 2000;Colin--Henrion et al, 2009], whereas apple pomace consists mainly of the insoluble fi bre (about 83%) [Dongowski et al, 2002]. Numerous articles describe the benefi cial effect of apple fi bre consumption and its favourable effects on such diet-related diseases as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer [Hyson, 2011]. Nevertheless, most of the studies are fo- The aim of this study was to scrutinise if the dietary addition of a low-pectin fi bre preparation obtained from apple pomace, the by-product of apple concentrate processing, is able to favourably affect the gut metabolism, antioxidant status and blood bio-markers of the organism, as it takes place when apple fi bre is present in the diet as an unprocessed ingredient.…”

Microbiological quality assessment for drug resistant pathogenic microorganisms from the fresh vended fruit juices

“…For enjoying the freshness of the fruit, unpasteurized fresh made juices are most popular among the people. As they contain lots of vitamins, minerals (calcium, phosphorous, sodium), several bioactive compounds (flavanone glycosides, hydroxycinnamic acid, antioxidants) which help to improve human health status, maintain blood lipid profile in hypercholesterolemia patients, inhibition of breast cancer, urinary tract infections, congestive heart failure, (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). These juices are generally sold in busy areas like shopping malls, schools, universities, hospitals, offices and so on (10)(11)(12)(13)(14).…”