Apples can be beneficial for people suffering from inflammatory diseases, according to a new study conducted by scientists at Plant & Food Research, a New Zealand-based science company.
For the study, the scientists evaluated the concentrations of 27 compounds believed to be beneficial to health in 109 different cultivars of apple - 94 from the Plant & Food Research germplasm collection and 15 grown in Luxembourg.
From the collection, five cultivars that represented the extremes of chemical profiles were selected. Extracts of the flesh and skin from each of these cultivars were assessed in laboratory cell-based assays for the apples' effect on important components of human inflammation.
The study results showed that apples with high levels of two families of compounds -the procyanidins and triterpenes - inhibited the activation of two molecules (NF-?B and TNFa), which known to play a role in inflammation and are key in inflammatory diseases, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Plant & Food Research Biological Chemistry and Bioactives science group leader William Laing said that understanding the compounds in the apple which impact pathways in disease facilitates the breeding of new varieties of apples with more of these compounds, which can be used as ingredients in foods specifically designed to control the disease symptoms.
Scientists from Plant & Food Research worked in collaboration with a research team at the Centre de Recherche Public-Gabriel Lippmann in Luxembourg. The research was conducted as part of the Nutrigenomics New Zealand program, a multidisciplinary research collaboration between Plant & Food Research, The University of Auckland and AgResearch, and funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
The program aims to develop gene-specific foods that prevent, control or cure disease. The initial target for the programme is Crohn's disease and other inflammatory bowel disorders.
