A seven-year study involving half a million adults in China, where fresh fruit consumption is much lower compared with the U.K. and U.S., shows eating more fresh produce could cut around half a million cardiovascular deaths per year. Here, www.freshfruitportal.com looks into the research.

It is not exactly ground-breaking news to proclaim that eating fresh fruit is good for you, but a new study pinpoints how important increasing consumption could be for the Chinese population.

Researchers from The Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH), a medical sciences division of Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, conducted the widespread nationwide study.

They deliberately chose China because of the low fresh fruit consumption rate and its potential impact on the population's health.

Involving 500,000 adults from 10 urban and rural localities across China, the research tracked the health of participants for seven years via death records and electronic hospital records of illness.

The study included people who did not have a history of cardiovascular disease or antihypertensive (i.e. high blood pressure) treatments when they first joined the study.

"The association between fruit consumption and cardiovascular risk seems to be stronger in China, where many still eat little fruit, than in high-income countries where daily consumption of fruit is more common," says study author Dr. Du Huaidong.

"Also fruit in China is almost exclusively consumed raw, whereas much of the fruit in high-income countries is processed, and many previous studies combined fresh and processed fruit."

People who eat fruit on most days of the week are at lower risk of heart attack and stroke than people who eat fruit rarely, according to the research which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine recently.

"It’s difficult to know whether the lower risk in people who eat more fresh fruit is because of a real protective effect," adds senior author Professor Chen Zhengming.

"If it is, then widespread consumption of fresh fruit in China could prevent about half a million cardiovascular deaths a year, including 200,000 before age 70, and even larger number of non-fatal strokes and heart attacks."

As a rich source of potassium, dietary fiber and antioxidants, fruit contains little sodium, fat and few calories, says the study which found fruit consumption (mainly apples and oranges) was strongly associated with other factors such as education, lower blood pressure, lower blood glucose and not smoking.

The research shows that a 100g (3.5oz) portion of fruit per day was associated with approximately one-third less cardiovascular mortality across both men and women.

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