Did you know you can protect yourself from viruses naturally with apples?
Everyone knows eating apples is healthy for you, but did you know that they can actually fight off viruses including the flu?
The Benefits of Apples
According to a study done by the Cornell University; apples contain a variety of phytochemicals, including quercetin, catechin, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid, all of which are strong antioxidants.
The benefits of antioxidants are well known, with such benefits including, strengthening your immune system and targeting free radicals.
But what isn’t so well known is that these antioxidants can also protect against viruses.
Anti-Oxidants to the Rescue
In a scientific study published by The FASEB Journal; scientists found that antioxidants can actually prevent respiratory viruses like influenza from attacking your lungs.
These antioxidants stop the virus’s M2 protein from disrupting your lung’s epithelial cells, allowing your body to remove unwanted liquid from inside of your lungs.
However, the Cornell study learned that apple juice has a lot less phytochemicals in it than whole apples.
This is because the majority of its antioxidants are in the peel, and so juicing an apple removes 90%+ of its antioxidants.
But cold storage has little to no effect on the phytochemicals, making fresh, raw, whole apples of the greatest healing benefit.
Fresh is Best
So the old adage, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” may just have more truth in it than you originally thought.
With this in mind, when you go to your grocery store, be sure to stock up on some local farm-fresh apples during this tough time.
Or come straight to Mountain Orchard’s cold storage and buy your apples here.
References:
- Department of Food Science and Institute of Comparative and Environmental Toxicology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-7201 USA Copyright © 2004 Boyer and Liu; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article’s original URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC442131/
- Ahmed Lazrak, Karen E. Iles, Gang Liu, Diana L. Noah, James W. Noah, and Sadis Matalon. Influenza virus M2 protein inhibits epithelial sodium channels by increasing reactive oxygen species. The FASEB Journal, 2009; doi:10.1096/fj.09-135590
