Common fruit are great, too!

We often hear about ‘super foods’ or ‘super fruits’ so it’s great to see some research on three of the most commonly eaten fruit, namely bananas, apples and oranges.

Laboratory research by scientists from Korea and the US used extracts of the antioxidant compounds from the fruits to evaluate their effects on cultured nerve cells. Their results suggest that fresh apples, bananas and oranges in our daily diet, along with other fruits, could protect against oxidative stress-induced toxins that damage or destroy nerve tissue. This could potentially play an important role in reducing the risk of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Many studies indicate that the brain of an Alzheimer’s disease patient is subjected to increased oxidative stress resulting from free radical damage, and the resulting cellular dysfunctions are widely believed to be responsible for the degeneration of nerve cells in Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: Journal of Food Science, March 2008