A Cameo® a day keeps the doctor away ...
No longer an old wives tale!
The alarming rise in obesity and deadly, preventable diseases, has given healthy eating a new urgency. Much scientific attention has been devoted to the study of apples and health by prestigious institutions like the Mayo Clinic and Cornell University.
With every new study, we discover more health benefits from apples and further proof that, by providing protective “medicine” for a host of serious illnesses, apples truly do “keep the doctor away.”
But why Cameo, and not just any apple?
The high-antioxidant apple
Cameo is full of a lot more than great flavor and crunch. Studies show that Cameo apples contain among the highest level of antioxidants of all the new variety apples.* So while eating more apples is always a good thing for staying healthy, eating more Cameo apples, specifically, is even better.
*In a University of Bonn test of 31 apple varieties, including Gala, Fuji and Braeburn, Cameo scored highest in total antioxidant capacity. Antioxidants protect the human body from free radicals that may cause breast cancer.
The healing power of antioxidants
Multiple studies have shown that apple antioxidants not only help prevent breast cancer, they can also shrink existing tumors. And now, an exciting new study from Cornell University shows that apple antioxidants can also prevent tumors from spreading.
Health insurance you can bake a pie with
Cameo apples are a Rx for health. They’re not only crunchy and flavorful, they can help protect you against all manner of diseases and conditions — Alzheimer’s, stroke, heart disease, lung disease, most cancers, obesity/diabetes, and many others.
What other preventive medicine can you eat on the run, pack in a lunch, slice in a salad or bake in a flaky, crusty pie?
Cameo apple fiber facts
• An average size Cameo apple has five grams of fiber — as much or more than most popular cereals, including oatmeal.
• One Cameo apple delivers more fiber than an entire head of iceberg lettuce, a bran muffin or two bell peppers.
• One Cameo apple supplies one fourth of the daily level of fiber recommended by the American Dietetic Association.
• One Cameo apple contains 80% soluble fiber, which may help lower blood cholesterol.
• 20% of the fiber in a Cameo is insoluble, and thought to help prevent certain types of cancer.
Cameo nutritional facts
• Fat, sodium and cholesterol free. Only 80 calories.
• An important source of potassium, which regulates the body's fluid balance and neuromuscular activity.
• Contains naturally occurring chemicals called flavonoids, which may reduce the risk of heart disease and inhibit development of certain cancers, including breast cancer.
• An excellent source of carbohydrate energy.
• A great snack to add to your "good health scorecard" of a minimum five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends a minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables a day to maintain optimum health and nutrition.
America’s obesity problem
• 64% of Americans are overweight or obese.
• Obesity deaths are increasing--up 3% in the last decade!
• 30 serious medical conditions are associated with obesity.
• 40% of Americans, ages 40 to 74, have pre-diabetes.
• 74% of people who were obese in their 40’s will be diagnosed with dementia
in their 60’s and 70’s.
Read more about prevention in the Miken Report
Healthy living could save U.S. $1 trillion, study finds prevention and early detection could drastically reduce the incidence of chronic disease, researchers say.
By Lisa Girion
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 3, 2007
The rapid rise in preventable chronic diseases — such as obesity and heart disease — over the last 20 years is hurting U.S. economic productivity, escalating treatment costs and causing unnecessary suffering, a new report says.
That's the bad news.
The good news, according to the report by the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute, is that the trend can be turned around with healthy doses of prevention and early detection.
The report comes amid a national debate over healthcare, what it should include, and who should pay for it — including government, private insurers, individuals and employers.
The Milken report is part of growing pressure at the same time to allocate more health dollars for prevention and early detection — rather than just treatment.
Currently Medicare, the government's health insurance program for seniors, and private insurers tend to pay more for surgeries and treatment procedures than for prevention counseling in a physician's office.
Such payments are rooted in the healthcare needs of the population when the payment plans began decades ago.
The Milken Institute, a private economic think tank, joins a growing chorus of researchers and public health experts contending that such a system no longer serves the nation because the population is aging and because the incidence of obesity and preventable diseases among Americans of all ages, including children, has risen alarmingly in recent years.
The Milken report is one of the most ambitious attempts to quantify what is at stake in economic terms.
It says a reorientation toward prevention could avert 40 million cases of seven chronic diseases — cancers, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, mental disorders and pulmonary conditions — in the year 2023.
That would reduce anticipated treatment expenses associated with the seven diseases and improve productivity by $1.1 trillion that year, it says.
The report does not put a price tag on prevention and early detection efforts.
But the authors suggest that the economic gains and reduced treatment costs would more than pay for such efforts.
"Good health is an investment in economic growth," said Ross DeVol, director of the Milken Institute's Center for Health Economics and the lead author of the report, titled "An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease."
The report recommends making rewards for prevention a part of any healthcare overhaul, and it urges a renewed commitment by policymakers to achieving a "healthy body weight."
Reducing obesity alone to reasonable and achievable levels, the report says, could trim the incidence of disease by 14.8 million case in 2023, saving $60 billion in treatment costs and improving the nation's economic output by $254 billion.
Institute founder Michael Milken said the nation had made great strides in improving cancer death rates but was failing to avert preventable diseases.
Milken, himself a cancer survivor, pointed the finger at high-calorie, high-fat foods, and he noted the rapid advance of obesity, which is linked to many escalating diseases, including diabetes and hypertension.
He called for a moon-launch-type mission to fight disease through prevention efforts, such as diet and exercise, and to improve outcomes with early detection.
"We have not contained the containable," Milken said at a Washington news conference.
This "doesn't take new medical breakthroughs or new Nobel Prizes to solve."
The report was released at the news conference, held by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who serves as chairman of the coalition, said the report helped by identifying the "cost burden" of chronic disease.
"It's truly staggering," he said. "If we are unable to reduce the rate of chronic disease, the potential economic damage to our nation could be devastating."
Carmona said the biggest problem with the current system was that it waits for people to get sick and then treats them at high cost.
"The system we have is archaic," he said. "It really doesn't work."
Public health experts said the report should help focus the attention of presidential candidates and policymakers to the need to emphasize and encourage prevention, early detection and effective disease management.
"Most of the national policy discussion on healthcare is about financing mechanisms," said Kenneth Thorpe, a public health professor at Emory University in Atlanta and executive director of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.
This report "suggests that the urgent need to act now to reduce the amount of preventable illness as the country ages deserves equal focus," he said.
Thorpe said the magnitude and growing burden of disease required new approaches.
"Solving the problem is not going to be done the way we've done things in the past -- dialing up co-pays and deductibles," he said.
The Milken research builds on a study by Thorpe that was released this week that found higher rates of cancer and chronic diseases among Americans age 50 and older compared with their European counterparts.
Thorpe blamed Americans' diet and sedentary lifestyle.