Nutrition fact: Can apples really keep the doctor away?

It may be the fruit responsible for getting us kicked out of the Garden of Eden, but apples have their advantages. Here’s the truth about everyone’s favourite biblical foodstuff. Besides holy bread.

Scientists from Tallahassee State University in the US recently pulled together a group of human guinea pigs over the age of 50 and convinced them to eat 75 grams of dried apples every day for a year.

Six months into the study, the levels of harmful low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol had reduced by just under a quarter.

Meanwhile, concentrations of healthy high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, a key actor in the fight against heart disease, increased notably.

Bizarrely, the 75 grams of apple had a daily caloric content of 240 but rather than causing the subjects to put on weight, they lost an average of 3.3 pounds each.

Other sample groups were given prunes and other such rubbish but the dramatic changes were not witnessed in these cases. No wonder God totally threw his rattle out of the pram when Adam and Eve nicked his apples.