Pears: All Health Benefits, Explained

It’s officially plum season in the UK. And if you didn’t already know, the common fruits are pretty great for us – they’ve been associated with slower brain ageing, better bone health, and even a reduced risk of some cancers.

As it happens, pears are about to reach their prime too. Some research suggests those are also beneficial for everything from the heart to the gut.

Here’s what the research says.

Around one in seven adults in the UK has constipation at any given time. Luckily, pears could help: they’re high in fructose and sorbitol, which can act as a mild laxative.

Pears also contain a decent amount of fibre, especially when eaten with their skins – just one offers around a fifth of the recommended 30g a day. This bulks out stool and can benefit our gut health.

A small study involving 40 participants found that eating two pears a day for 12 weeks appeared to lower heart disease risk factors, like high blood pressure, among those with metabolic syndrome.

We already know that fibre is good for our heart health, but pears also contain the antioxidant quercetin, linked to lower rates of cardiovascular disease.

One study found that for every serving of pear a person consumes a week, their risk of type 2 diabetes dropped by 3%.

Researchers think this might be because they contain anthocyanins, which may lead to lower diabetes risk.

Though a certain degree of inflammation can be normal and even healthy, uncontrolled inflammation – sometimes called “inflammaging” – can damage our cells and speed up the ageing process.

Pears contain powerful antioxidants called flavonoids, which some research suggests could have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body.

Pears contain compounds like anthocyanins and cinnamic acid. Anthocyanins have been shown to have anticancer effects on both tumours and lab tissues, and cinnamic acid has been shown to reverse some cancerous growth.

However, the way those compounds are used in a lab does not always translate to how they’re actually processed in the body, and we don’t have any specific studies looking at pears and cancer risk.