RESEARCH SUGGESTS THAT NUTRIENTS IN APPLES AND APPLE JUICE IMPROVE MEMORY AND
LEARNING
LOWELL, MASS. (March 4, 2004) - Want to keep your brain on
its toes? Then you may want to keep in mind that old adage about "an apple
a day." New research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell suggests
that apple juice may protect against oxidative damage that contributes to age-related
brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and may help to maintain brain
performance – indicating that eating apples and drinking apple juice may
impact our brain’s health and mental acuity throughout life.
"This is incredible food for thought," says lead researcher Thomas
B. Shea, Ph.D., director of the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center
for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration Research, whose work on mice has
just been published in the February issue of the Journal
of Nutrition, Health and Aging.
While he cautions his findings in animals are preliminary and more research
is needed, Shea characterizes these results as very encouraging news about brain
health for apple and apple juice fans of all ages who are interested in staying
mentally sharp.
Shea and his colleagues assessed whether the consumption of apple juice was
protective against oxidative brain damage that results from normal metabolism,
dietary insufficiencies or genetic deficiencies.
"Our results suggest that something in apple juice appears to protect
the brain against oxidative damage, and improves cognitive performance in these
animals, even when we impose dietary or genetic challenges," said Dr. Shea.
"We think that this ‘something’ is the apple’s naturally
high level of antioxidants."
The researchers evaluated normal adult mice as well as mice that carry a gene
associated with diseases like Alzheimer’s. Groups of both types of mice
were exposed to either a "complete" diet including known antioxidants,
or a "deficient" diet that is thought to increase oxidative damage.
Some mice in each group then received apple juice concentrate in concentrations
of 0.1, 0.5 or 1.0 percent in their drinking water. Other mice received sugar
water to approximate the concentrate’s natural sugar and energy content.
After one month on the test diets, the animals were put through two different
well-established maze tests to determine their memory and learning capabilities.
Mice who consumed the diets augmented with apple juice tended to perform better
on the maze tests and all had less oxidative brain damage than the controls. In
fact, adding apple juice to the diet completely protected the normal mice from
the oxidative damage caused by the deficient diet – and protected the genetically-deficient
mice from both their genetic predisposition and the deficient diet, allowing them
to perform at the same level as normal mice being fed the complete diet.
Although the UMass Lowell researchers did not study what components in apples
were responsible for the neuroprotective effects demonstrated, they ruled out
sugar and energy content, suggesting that the antioxidant potential of apple juice
was responsible.
The results obtained were from moderate amounts of apple juice--comparable
to drinking approximately a couple of good-sized glasses of apple juice or eating
a couple of apples a day. The findings also suggest that apple juice was most
helpful in the framework of an overall healthy diet.
Research has shown that apples are a rich source of antioxidants; Cornell
University researchers reported in the journal Nature in 2000 that one apple packs
more cancer-fighting antioxidant capability than a 1,500-milligram dose of vitamin
C.
"This research suggests that eating apples and drinking apple juice,
in conjunction with a balanced diet, can protect the brain from the effects of
stress – and that we should eat such antioxidant-rich foods," said
Shea.
This study was sponsored through an unrestricted grant by the U.S. Apple Association
and the Apple Products Research and Education Council. The study confirms and
expands upon an earlier study (Ortiz and Shea) accepted for publication in the
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.