They say ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’. Well, now, researchers at Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Australia say eating an Orange a day can help fend off the development of macular degeneration, an all-too-common eye disease associated with aging that leads to blindness…
A flavinoid (antioxidant) peculiar to Oranges can lower your risk of developing
macular degeneration by as much as 60 percent.
Researchers interviewed more than 2,000 people about their dietary habits and followed them up over a 15-year period. One of their findings was that those who ate an Orange a day had up to a 50 percent lower risk of developing macular degneration. That a massive risk reduction!
And even those who consumed as little as one Orange a week had measureable benefits on the same metric.
“The data shows that flavonoids found in oranges appear to help protect against the disease,” says Lead Researcher Associate Professor Bamini Gopinath from the University of Sydney. “We examined common foods that contain flavonoids such as tea, apples, red wine and oranges. Significantly, the data did not show a relationship between other food sources protecting the eyes against the disease.”
Flavonoids are powerful antioxidants found in almost all fruits and vegetables, and they have important anti-inflammatory benefits for the immune system.
One in seven Australians over 50 have some signs of macular degeneration. Age is the strongest known risk factor and the disease is more likely to occur after the age of 50. There is currently no cure.
Now you know.
~ Maggie J.