Kiwi fruit has been labelled as the best source of vitamin C, which can have wonderful health benefits, according to an expert.
Professor Robin Fraser, of Otago University’s Christchurch School of Medicine, has said that the furry fruit could be the key to living longer as it appears to be the perfect food for preventing all sorts of liver problems as well as keeping white blood cells health. Fraser, who has seen many unhealthy livers in his time as a pathologist, is a convert to the benefits of the fruit.
“It just seems as though it works. I’m so convinced that I eat kiwifruit every morning for my breakfast,” Stuff.co.nz quoted him as saying.
Fraser compared the liver to a sieve that when working properly effectively filtered the carrier of cholesterol.
But, he said, those holes could be closed because of excess drinking, an overly fatty diet, smoking, illicit drug use and stress, which could lead to atherosclerosis- a major killer through heart failure, strokes, gangrenous feet and aortic aneurism.
But he pointed out that a daily dose of kiwifruit, along with a healthier lifestyle, appeared to be able to reopen those holes in the liver-which, in his opinion was an exciting development. He said kiwifruit was the most efficient way of getting the recommended dose of vitamin C, the active ingredient that appeared to fix the liver.
Dr Margreet Vissers, the dean of research at Otago University in Christchurch, said that vitamin C was also needed by white blood cells to kill bacteria and ensured they did not kill off everything else in the process.
Fraser presented his findings at the annual scientific meeting of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in Christchurch on Saturday.
