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Apple Juice May Be Worse Than Sugar Water

Why the spike in antioxidant levels in our bloodstream after drinking apple juice might not be a good thing.

January 7, 2013 |
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Apple Juice May Be Worse Than Sugar Water, 4.9 out of 5 based on 7 ratings

Sources Cited

Kalt W, Blumberg JB, McDonald JE, Vinqvist-Tymchuk MR, Fillmore SA, Graf BA, O'Leary JM, Milbury PE Identification of anthocyanins in the liver, eye, and brain of blueberry-fed pigs. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Feb 13;56(3):705-12.

Carlsen MH, Halvorsen BL, Holte K, Bøhn SK, Dragland S, Sampson L, Willey C, Senoo H, Umezono Y, Sanada C, Barikmo I, Berhe N, Willett WC, Phillips KM, Jacobs DR Jr, Blomhoff R. The total antioxidant content of more than 3100 foods, beverages, spices, herbs and supplements used worldwide. Nutr J. 2010 Jan 22;9:3.

Hanover LM, White JS. 1993. Manufacturing, composition, and applications of fructose. Am J Clin Nutr 58(suppl 5):724S-732S.

Reagan-Shaw S, Eggert D, Mukhtar H, Ahmad N. Antiproliferative effects of apple peel extract against cancer cells. Nutr Cancer. 2010;62(4):517-24.

Schlesier K, Harwat M, Böhm V, Bitsch R. Assessment of antioxidant activity by using different in vitro methods. Free Radic Res. 2002 Feb;36(2):177-87.

Godycki-Cwirko M, Krol M, Krol B, Zwolinska A, Kolodziejczyk K, Kasielski M, Padula G, Grebowski J, Kazmierska P, Miatkowski M, Markowski J, Nowak D. Uric acid but not apple polyphenols is responsible for the rise of plasma antioxidant activity after apple juice consumption in healthy subjects. J Am Coll Nutr. 2010 Aug;29(4):397-406.

Johnson RJ, Sautin YY, Oliver WJ, Roncal C, Mu W, Gabriela Sanchez-Lozada L, Rodriguez-Iturbe B, Nakagawa T, Benner SA. Lessons from comparative physiology: could uric acid represent a physiologic alarm signal gone awry in western society? J Comp Physiol B. 2009 Jan;179(1):67-76.

Acknowledgements

Images thanks to Suzifoo, PacHD.com, Krasowit, fragstafffotos, Free-extras.com, weatherrockeye, and Brian0918 and Arad and Dmitry Kichenko via Wikimedia Commons, and the National Cancer Institute.

Transcript

Just as you can measure the amount of antioxidant level in a cup of… apple juice, you can measure the antioxidant level in someone’s bloodstream. If you drink that juice, within minutes the antioxidant power of your blood starts to rise, you get a nice peak and then it comes back down. If you drink water, nothing happens, stays the same, down around 10. First, note the scale here. This is in the same units, using the same test as in our 3000+ food study. Compared to most foods in the produce aisle, the antioxidant level in our bodies kinda sucks. We don't even make iceberg lettuce. Not much better than meat, actually. But then again, meat is what we’re made of, so I guess it’s not that surprising. Your level does rise a few points when we eat healthy foods, so if you yaknow stuff babe with some, blueberries right before you whack him, you may actually get a healthier pork chop. Apple juice is a long way from blueberries, though. Basically just sugar water, fitting in right about here. Hardly even has any vitamin C, so why was there that nice spike in blood antioxidant level. Must be the phenolic phytonutrients? But we’re not talking purple grape juice, cranberry, pomegranate, we’re talking apple. And indeed, when you measure polyphenol levels in the blood, here’s what water does, compared to three types of apple juice, no difference, so what could it be? Turns out you can get a similar spike in antioxidant activity by feeding people essentially straight sugar water. Recently researchers at the Polish Institute of fruit and flower farming, sounds like a nice place to work, figured it out. It appears to be the uric acid, not the polyphenols that are responsible for the rise in blood antioxidant activity after apple juice consumption. Remember, fructose leads to uric acid production, and uric acid, for all the terrible things it does has some antioxidant activity, so the reason we see this nice spike in antioxidant activity when we drink apple juice, is not because we’re absorbing antioxidants into our bloodstream, it’s not because of a good thing, it’s because of all this excess uric acid waste produced when you take in that much sugar. And table sugar is only 50% fructose, high fructose corn syrup only 55%. The sugar in apple juice is 2/3 fructose, so apple juice in this respect may be even worse than sugar water.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Jonathan Hodgson.

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Dr. Michael Greger

Doctor's Note

This is the third in a video series about sugar. Make sure to see last week's Miocene Meteorites and Uric Acid and  Flesh and Fructose.

The antioxidant comparison is taken from my video Antioxidant Power of Plant Foods Versus Animal Foods. The comparison among juices is from Best Fruit Juice.

There is actually a fruit that's healthier in juice form. See The Fruit Whose Juice is Healthier.

Conventional apple juice may also contain contaminants (Fungal Toxins in Apples), so one should probably avoid apple juice, but what about apples? Find out in the next video of the day Apple Skin: Peeling Back Cancer.

If you haven't yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here.

  • hunniliz

    The chart at the end of the video shows agave nectar as highest in fructose. Previous videos have shown agave to not be a healthful sweetener, but didn’t specify why. Is this the reason?

    • Gertrude

      I learned the extracting process is quite toxic.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Johnson/1625466775 Susan Johnson

        Toxic??? Why is that Gertrude?

    • Jason Harrison

      Agave Nectar is mostly fructose. Fructose is converted to uric acid, fat, and other stuff you don’t want.

      “Agave nectar consists primarily of fructose and glucose.
      One source gives 92% fructose and 8% glucose; another gives 56%
      fructose and 20% glucose. These differences probably reflect variation
      from one vendor of agave nectar to another.[6][7]

      The impact of agave nectar on blood sugar (as measured by its glycemic index and glycemic load) are comparable to fructose,[8][9] which has a much lower glycemic index and glycemic load than table sugar (sucrose).[10][11] However, consumption of large amounts of fructose can be deleterious and can trigger fructose malabsorption, metabolic syndrome,[12] hypertriglyceridemia, decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and accelerated uric acid formation.[13][14][15]”
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave_nectar

  • http://www.facebook.com/danielyehuda76 Daniel Yehuda

    So shouled I continue to drink apple juice that I juice my self ?

    • Skinnyjuan

      I have the same question. I don’t know if you are talking about apple juice from the grocery store or organic apple juices I juiced myself?

    • Randy Sandberg

      My suggestion would be to eat the entire edible part of the apple rather than just its juice.

  • nelson

    The link to Apple Skin: Peeling Back Cancer is no longer available Doc. I’d like to also know if juicing apples along with other fruits and veggies is still an ok route to get our kids to consume.

    • HemoDynamic, M.D.

      The Apple Skin: Peeling Back Cancer is not available because it is tomorrows video so stay tuned!

  • JP

    Are we talking about home made juice or processed apple juice found in groceries? (does it make any difference?)

    • JP

      Got the answer, we’re not talking about home-extracted organic apple juice…

      Cloudy Apple Juice Preparation. The cloudy apple juice was produced from the 2006 apple harvest. Before being processed, apples were stored for 9 months in a commercial storage room under controlled atmospheric conditions containing 2% O2 and 2% CO2 at a temperature of 1.5uC. Fruits were washed and disintegrated using Frymaperforated disc mill Ascorbic acid solution was dosed (200 mg/kg of apples) into the mill funnel during grinding. The resulting mash was directly pressed on a hydraulic pack press . Raw juice was centrifuged using continuous flow disk stack centrifuge at 1500 rpm and citric acid (3 g/L of product) was added. Hot (96–98uC), cloudy apple juice was placed in 0.25-L screw-cap glass bottles using plate heat exchanger. After 30 minutes, the bottles were cooled in tap water and then stored in the dark at 4uC for 4 weeks until use.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ginamaidenn Gina Mai Denn

    Is apple cider any better?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Johnson/1625466775 Susan Johnson

    Yes, I think all of us juicers need to know ! Most Green juices I make , I also throw in an apple. Is this bad now?? What is good for you anymore?? Seems like so many studies come out daily about things that you thought where good , now being bad. I am confused.

    • HemoDynamic, M.D.

      If you don’t have Gout and you are healthy you are OK to have a few juices, but the healthiest way to live is consuming a Whole Food plant based diet. Whole food is the key phrase because when you grind up food you are now processing it. This processing of apples takes the sugar out of the plants cell and causes spikes of glucose that are hard on the body. If you chew it however you will not get as high of a spike in blood glucose (protecting your body) and still get the benefits of the Whole apple.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Johnson/1625466775 Susan Johnson

        So, what about juicing veggies. Is it good for you ?????

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Johnson/1625466775 Susan Johnson

          Also, when I make veggie juice I make about 32 oz.s and one apple is added to that. So, that isnt much is it. I just like the way it taste with apple

    • thissal

      It’s easy to get confused. Now here’s an article saying too many anti-oxidants (super foods like blue berries and broccoli) may allow more cancer: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2259280/Superfoods-make-cancer-MORE-likely-says-pioneer-DNA-study.html

      • http://www.facebook.com/mirko.matic.121 Mirko Matić

        The author of the text confuses antioxidants in wholefoods and pills as well as research on those.

    • LynnCS

      Juicing should always be a treat, like any sweet water. The whole food is always best. That is not news. Our bodies love all that wonderful fiber. It’s how our insides function to help take that good sweet stuff through our intestines to our cells. Eat your greens….or make a smoothie to utilize the fiber. There are a lot of nay sayers about smoothies, but better to get it all in you. Just keep it simple and vegan. Lots of water and voila….Health.

    • mkc

      you could switch to green smoothies: all the nutrition and the fiber. i personally cant physically eat very much (digestive issues) so green smoothies are the next best things, its a whole food, just kind of “pre chewed” lol

  • HemoDynamic, M.D.

    That was a bitter-sweet study!
    Maybe you could have ended that vid with, “How about them Apples!”
    ;-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/immathison Iona Maria Mathison

    is this fresh apple juice or heavily processed made from reconstituted apples juice????

  • Bryan

    I’m also interested in whether or not juicing apples is a good or bad thing.

  • http://nutrientuniverse.blogspot.co.uk/ JamesKB

    I sometimes used to get back pain, slower heart rate, and exhaustion from drinking store bought apple juice. Sometimes got the same with grapes though. Always passed within 30 minutes or so, then I felt great.

  • http://www.facebook.com/shay.jensen.9 Shay Jensen

    It’s easy to get confused. Now here’s an article saying too many
    anti-oxidants (super foods like blue berries and broccoli) may allow
    more cancer:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2259280/Superfoods-make-cancer-MORE-likely-says-pioneer-DNA-study.html

  • Elia

    Dr Greger, would you recommend to drink any store-bought juice at all? For example 100% grape or orange juices seem not that bad, or do they act as sugary drinks in our bodies? Thank you.

  • Igor Laskin

    this is very disappointing info about apple juice … what about real apple, that freshly juiced and consumed in 1-2 minutes???

    • http://www.DonForresterMD.com/ Don Forrester MD

      Would not make much difference except mainly in taste as I imagine the fructose levels would be the same. The problem with juicing is it throws out the fiber(good for you) and the peel(where the phytonutrients are located). Whole food is best but blending is better than juicing.

      • Alex

        Fresh juices and prossesed juices are very different, fresh juices are more nutritional in general, and apples in general are high in fructose, juiced ore not. Should one refrain from eating apples? Whole apples contain fiber, that gives you a feeling of fullness, that’s why you couldn’t probably eat 10 apples, but you can easily drink them. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12403253)

  • LynnCS

    Great message. So glad I have always loved the whole fruit and while other mothers were peeling their little darling’s apples, mine was giving us whole apples. A wonderful treat! Thanks Mom!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000332470126 Terry Hebert

    For a popular and helpful lecture on sugar metabolism, see the UC Berkely YouTube channel (UCTV: “Sugar the Bitter Truth,” Dr. Robert H. Lustig). According to Dr. Lustig, sugar reduces to two harmful components: lipids and uric acid. Once I eliminated sugar and animal fats from my diet–favoring a whole foods, plant-based diet–my gout attacks are now infrequent and minor. Also, uric acid stores in our body fat, so weight loss releases uric acid in quantities too rich for the blood and kidneys, which triggers a gout attack. This accounts for my current episodes since I don’t eat animal protein or eat refined fructose. The KEY to sugar metabolism from whole foods is FIBER (along with nutrition). The whole fruit and vegetable incorporate within them the vehicles for eliminating uric acid through the intestines. Thirty percent of uric acid is eliminated through the intestines–if possible–while the other 70% is eliminated through the kidneys–if possible. By the way, gout reveals itself as arthritis in the extremities. Imagine kidney stones in the joints.

  • Johann Gittens

    What about certain studies such as this > http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056339. They claim that vegan diets have higher serum uric acid concentrations, the science seems sound, I’ve been over the study a few times.

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