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An apple a day...yeah, you know the rest. But that long-standing adage might have something to it, after all: Two 2007 studies discovered that consuming apples and apple juice led to decreased asthma symptoms among children, while cutting their risk of developing asthma in the first place.
The more recent study, published in the September 2007 issue of Thorax, found that when women ate apples during their pregnancy, their offspring showed a marked decrease in asthma and wheezing. The study tracked the diets of 1,253 mother-child pairs over a period of five years, and the only other positive association the study's authors found between prenatal food intake and risk reduction in the children was the mothers' fish intake. (Researchers found that children of mothers who ate fish had a lowered incidence of doctor-confirmed eczema.)A similar study published in the June 2007 issue of the European Respiratory Journal uncovered that drinking apple juice made from concentrate and eating bananas one or more times a day resulted in less wheezing occurrences.
The protective effect from apples, say the authors of the Thorax paper, is thanks to their powerful phytochemical content, which includes lavonoids, isoflavonoids, and phenolic acids. In fact, apples and apple-derived products combined are the largest source of free phenolics in diets in the United States and Europe.
Asthma remains a major public health concern, according to the American Lung Association. Ranking among the top 10 prevalent conditions that cause limited activity, asthma also costs Americans $16.1 billion in health-care costs every year.
Tip: Make sure the apple you're crunching into is organic, because conventional apples retain some of the highest levels of pesticide residues among all the produce.
Difficulty level: Easy
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