Apples for Health- Fruitful Way To Health

Fruitful Way To Health

Parents can pave a fruitful way to health for their children -- even before their birth, studies suggest.

If mouse research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis holds any water, moms-to-be at risk of premature delivery may want to consider drinking pomegranate juice to help reduce the risk of brain damage in their babies.

The so-called hypoxic ischemic injury -- which stems from low oxygen and reduced blood flow and can lead to seizures, a degenerative condition known as hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, cerebral palsy and other abnormalities -- occurs primarily in premature infants born before 34 weeks of gestation.

In experiments that mimicked the condition in newborn mice, investigators found rodents whose mothers drank water mixed with pomegranate concentrate during the last trimester of pregnancy and the first seven days of post-birth suckling lost 60 percent less brain tissue than those whose mothers drank sugar water or other fluids.

They also showed 84 percent less activity in an enzyme implicated in cerebral destruction.

"Hypoxic ischemic brain injury in newborns is very difficult to treat, and right now there's very little we can do to stop or reverse its consequences," said Dr. David Holtzman, head of neurology and senior author of the study, published in Pediatric Research and supported by pomegranate fruit and juice producer POM Wonderful.

"Most of our efforts focus on stopping it when it happens, but if we could treat everyone who's at risk preventively, we may be able to reduce the impacts of these kinds of injuries."

Another study, by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, takes the protective process back even further. The analysis, published in Cancer Causes and Control, indicates beefing up on protein and produce before pregnancy may reduce a woman's risk of giving birth to a baby who will develop leukemia, the most common childhood cancer in the United States.

Upon inspection, the team discovered beef, beans and other protein-rich fare are laden with glutathione, an antioxidant thought to help thwart cancer by synthesizing and repairing the genetic material DNA and detoxifying certain harmful compounds.

In protective produce, the scientists zeroed in on carotenoids -- plentiful in carrots, string beans and cantaloupe -- as a potential anti-cancer agent.

"These findings show how vital it is that women hoping to get pregnant, as well as expectant moms, understand that critical nutrients in vegetables, fruit and foods containing protein, such as meat, fish, beans and nuts, may protect the health of their unborn children," said nutritional epidemiologist Christopher Jensen.

The nurturing role of nutritious food continues as the baby grows and develops.

"Children with healthier diets are less likely to be sick or overweight, and they are more likely to continue healthy eating habits when they become adults," said Sibylle Kranz, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Pennsylvania State University.

Her study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, showed although the overall diet of American preschoolers improved marginally in the past 20 years, it still rings up a deficit in the produce department.

In its recently rebuilt Food Guide Pyramid, the federal government encourages children ages 4 to 8 to down 1.5 cups of vegetables a day, an amount that increases to 2 cups for girls ages 9 to 13 and 2.5 cups for their male counterparts.

On the fruit side, 1.5 cups may suffice for all those age groups.

How well the guidelines are followed may depend upon such factors as proximity to a supermarket, suggests a study conducted by Tulane University investigators and published in Public Health Nutrition.

"If it's close by, people seem to eat more fruits and vegetables, but if it is over 5 miles away, consumption of fruit is significantly less," said lead author Diego Rose. "People in the United States don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, so neighborhood environmental factors, like access to a supermarket, or other plentiful source of low-cost fruits and vegetables, may be important for increasing consumption, especially among low-income households."

Proximity to restaurants seems to have the opposite effect, with those who frequently eat out being more likely to skimp on fresh produce than those who dine at home, according to researchers who found 73 percent of the young Missouri families they studied failed to meet the government guidelines.

"The more often parents eat out, the lower their intake of fruits and vegetables," said Amanda Harrod, a researcher at the St. Louis University School of Public Health who presented the findings at an American Public Health Association conference.

As parents do, so children follow.

In a study of 180 girls, at ages 7 and 9, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers at Appalachian State University found mothers partial to fruits and vegetables are less likely to pressure their daughters, who, in turn, will be less inclined to become picky eaters or produce shunners.

The authors cautioned caregivers to "focus less on 'picky eating' behaviors and more on modeling fruit and vegetable consumption for their children."

Researchers also issued a caveat to parents who use aliments to assuage ailments, often without consulting their pediatrician.

In looking at the fruitfulness of treating children's recurrent urinary-tract infections with cranberries, the team at Brenner Children's Hospital at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center found only 23 percent of parents who subscribe to the popular practice do so with their pediatrician's knowledge.

"It has become clear that parents frequently use cranberry for therapeutic purposes -- occasionally in lieu of standard therapy," said Dr. Kathi Kemper, a pediatrician and author of the report published in the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics.

"Research to address efficacy and safety issues is needed even more urgently than we originally thought."

Children's health can get a boost from eating fruitful fare, but there are times, when illness strikes, it needs a doctor's care.