One apple a day keeps the doctor away – or so we thought.
In fact, it turns out that once a day can be enough to keep you in good shape and even live longer.
Scientists have found that eating four apples a week can reduce the risk of dying from heart disease by almost 40 percent.
Bananas are also extremely useful: they reduce the risk of premature death by just under 30 percent. And if you eat both types of fruit three to four times a week, the risk of premature death is almost halved.
An apple every other day could be enough to keep you in shape and even help you live longer, new research shows
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers from Yangtze Hospital in Jinzhou, China, followed 2,184 middle-aged men and women with high cholesterol.
Over a ten-year period, those who ate three to four apples a week were 39 percent less likely to die from any cause than those who ate them rarely. Regular banana consumption had a similar impact.