The old refrain of "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" might have a germ of truth at least regarding inflammatory diseases, New Zealand scientists announced Monday.

Researchers at the government-owned Plant & Food Research institute analyzed the concentrations of 27 compounds thought to be beneficial to health in 109 different cultivars (varieties) of apple - 94 from the institute's germplasm collection and 15 grown in Luxembourg, said a statement from Plant & Food.

Five of the cultivars that represented the extremes of chemical profiles identified were then selected for laboratory cell-based assays for the apples' effect on key components of human inflammation.

The results showed that the apples with high levels of two families of compounds -the procyanidins and triterpenes - inhibited the activation of two molecules (NF-B and TNF) known to play a role in inflammation in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

"Apple is one of the most highly consumed fruits worldwide," Dr William Laing, the institute's science group leader biological chemistry and bioactives, said in the statement.

"Understanding which compounds in apple influence pathways in disease, such as IBD, allows us to breed new varieties of apple with more of these compounds that can then be used as ingredients in foods specifically designed to control the disease symptoms."

The New Zealand scientists were working in conjunction with researchers at Luxembourg's Centre de Recherche Public-Gabriel Lippmann on a program to determine how food and food composition affected health based on genetic information.

Ultimately, the program intended to develop gene-specific foods that prevented, controlled or cured diseases.

Its initial target was Crohn's disease and other inflammatory bowel disorders, which affected about 15,000 people in New Zealand alone.