Michael Greger M.D. FACLM  asks in his NutritionFacts.org blog, “Which would save more lives: eating an apple a day or taking statin drugs?”

Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? That’s a public health message that’s been around since 1866, but is it true? You don’t know until you put it to the test. As I discuss in my video Flashback Friday: Does an Apple a Day Really Keep the Doctor Away?.

The objective of “The Association Between Apple Consumption and Physician Visits,” an article published in the American Medical Association’s internal medicine journal, was simple: “To examine the relationship between eating an apple a day and keeping the doctor away.” 

The message has been “promoted by the lay media and powerful special interest groups, including the US Apple Association”—a force so powerful that it spent a whopping $7,000 lobbying politicians during the 2017-18 election cycle. (Okay, so maybe Big Apple is more like an itty bitty appletini.) At any rate, the beneficial effects of apple consumption may include the facilitation of “weight loss, prevention of neurologic degradation [protection of the brain], cancer suppression, reduction in asthma symptoms, and improved cardiovascular health.” So, apple consumers ought to require less medical care, right? “Although some may jest, considering the relatively low cost of apples…a prescription for apple consumption could potentially reduce national health care spending if the aphorism holds true.”  Read more