ISLAMABAD: Fresh fruit can help reduce risk of heart attack, said a new research.
The findings, published by the New England Journal of Medicine, came from a seven-year study of half a million adults in China, where fresh fruit consumption is much lower than in countries like the UK or the United States, Radio Pakistan reported.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences conducted a large, nationwide study of 500,000 adults from 10 urban and rural localities across China, tracking health for seven years through death records and electronic hospital records of illness.
The participants did not have a history of cardiovascular diseases or anti-hypertensive treatments when they first joined the study. The study found that eating fruits, mainly apples or oranges, was strongly associated with many other factors, such as education, lower blood pressure, lower blood glucose, and not smoking in China.
“The association between fruit consumption and cardiovascular risk seems to be stronger in China, where many still eat little fruit, than in high-income countries where daily consumption of fruit is more common,” study author Huaidong Du of the University of Oxford said.