Do Apples Make You Strong?

The study says that apples make your muscles strong!

Apples are crisp, juicy fruits with red, yellow or green skins. Eating apples daily is always good and there is a long list of health benefits associated with this wondrous fruit. They have a long history of being a miraculous fruit.

Everybody knows about the biblical story, where apples were mentioned as the "fruit of knowledge" and in Norse mythology, they were said to keep people looking young forever, since they are loaded with antioxidants. Eating an apple every day also satisfies your daily vitamin C requirements.

Apples are also known to improve brain health, prevent colon cancer, promote healthy lungs and heart. But, apart from all this, recently apples have been in the limelight for some interesting findings.

Fitness freaks and all those who wish to lose extra pounds, can benefit immensely if you team up your exercises or workouts with a perfect diet plan.

Of course you already know this, but people rarely follow this fact. They usually hit the gym regularly, do their exercises sincerely and starve themselves, thinking this will amount to greater weight loss. But, all this leads to causing weak muscles and weakness.

So, how do you lose weight and build strong muscles at the same time? Researchers have studied the benefit of apples on laboratory animals to find that this fruit aids weight loss and helps in building stronger muscles at the same time.

Our muscles tend to get weak and with weak muscles, simple activities like pulling out a chair or getting up frequently to open the door can seem irritating and tiresome. The weakening of muscles in medical terms is called muscle atrophy and is seen majorly in people wanting to lose weight or elderly people.

People wanting to lose weight usually follow strict diet plans or rather starve to lose weight, however, all this eventually leads to a decrease in muscle mass. Now, it is important to be in shape and maintain muscle mass too. Apple is one such fruit that combats both these problems at the same time.

Well... yes, since pectin is an excellent source of dietary fiber, present in apples that helps aid weight loss and ursolic acid, which in a recent discovery encourages muscle growth. If you want the answer to the question, "do apples make your muscles strong" in one word; it ain't a simple yes or no. What follows next is a detailed answer to the question.

Apparently, it is found that this fruit contributes in building strong muscles. This effect is due to the recently discovered fact, that apples contain a certain acid, known as "ursolic acid". Ursolic acid is a fantastic natural compound and mainly present in the peel of an apple.

According to the results of a study on mice, it was found to eliminate muscle wasting. Muscle atrophy is usually a companion of illness and aging, apples delay or prolong this phenomenon. Furthermore, guinea pigs who were fed with this dose of ursolic acid became leaner and had lower blood glucose levels and cholesterol levels.

Therefore, apples are now, known to regulate blood sugar levels and triglycerides also. Although, it is not clear, at this point, whether the fruit's effect on mice would hold true for humans as well, but most researchers confirm that it would work in the same way.

As cliche as the proverb sounds "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", there is a concrete reason why this adage came into being in the first place. With the long list of health benefits and this recent discovery associated with apples, no doubt we are asked to include it in our daily diet, time and again.

So make sure you eat at least one apple daily, any time during the day and keep obesity and weak muscles away!