Author: Alexander Bruni
Time for reading: ~1
minutes
Last Updated:
August 08, 2022
In this article, learn more about With An Apple A Day I Keep The Doctor Away From Me!. How true can a folk wisdom be?.
An apple a day for adults over the age of 50 has such a protective effect on the cardiovascular system as taking statins - drugs that lower blood cholesterol, say researchers from Oxford University.
It is common practice for patients at risk of more than 20% of cardiovascular disease over the age of 50 to be prescribed statins for prophylaxis for life. However, the fact is that the risk group is constantly growing and very soon these drugs can be prescribed en masse, and they have their side effects, writes The British Medical Journal (BMJ).
In this desperate situation, a group of researchers decided to check the truth of an old English proverb - "With an apple a day I keep the doctor away from me!". To do this, they use a mathematical model and meta-analysis to track the effect of statins on reducing cardiovascular mortality in those 17.6 million Britons over the age of 50 who are not yet taking the pills, compared to the effect of apple consumption per day for the entire population of the country.
And get the following results:
Needless to say, one example, unlike the other, reported significant side effects, such as an increased incidence of myopathy in the population and more than 10,000 new cases of diabetes.
When consuming an apple, apart from resentment, frustration and slight stress due to the presence of a worm in it, the researchers did not find any other negatives.
Our scientific research proves the rightness of a folk wisdom, which, of course, does not mean that statin recipients should stop taking them, but rather that patients and physicians should strive and adhere to therapeutic approaches that combine different means, in this case pharmaceutical product and dietary nutrition, commented the results of the study's lead author Adams Bridges.