1. High in Fiber
With over five grams of fiber in every pear, pears are the ultimate high-fiber food and a great way to make sure you’re covering your bases of 25–30 grams daily. Fiber contains zero digestible calories and is a necessary element of a healthy diet since it helps sustain healthy blood sugar levels and promotes regularity.
One of the most researched aspects of pear nutrition is pears’ compound called pectin fiber. Pectin fiber is more than just a regulator; it’s a type of special beneficial fiber that’s water-soluble and helps lower cholesterol and increases digestive health.
Apples are usually known for providing pectin, but pears are actually a better source. As a soluble fiber, pectin works by binding to fatty substances in the digestive tract, including cholesterol and toxins, and promotes their elimination. This means pear nutrition benefits the body’s detoxifying capabilities, helps regulate the body’s use of sugars and cholesterol, and improves gut and digestive health.
2. High Source of Immune-Boosting Vitamin C
One pear provides a good dose of the daily vitamin C you need, a powerful antioxidant that fights free radical damage and lowers oxidative stress. Vitamin C is sometimes even called the most powerful vitamin on the planet! One fresh, medium-sized pear contains about 12 percent of the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid), which is beneficial for protecting DNA, stopping cell mutation, maintaining a healthy metabolism and repairing tissue.
Pear nutrition benefits your skin too. Vitamin C from high-antioxidant foods like pears helps increase skin’s immunity and has anti-aging effects because it promotes skin cell renewal. Vitamin C foods also help heal cuts and bruises and guard against a number of age-related and infectious diseases.
3. Provides Antioxidants
In addition to vitamin C, pear skins (or peels) also contain important phytonutrients, including polyphenols, phenolic acids and flavonoids, that can help ward off disease formation, so don’t peel your fruit! In fact, when researchers studied the antioxidant capacity of pears and apples, they found that diets that included the fruit peels had a significantly higher level of healthy fatty acids (higher plasma lipid levels) and antioxidant activity than diets that discarded the peels and only ate the fruit’s pulp.
Diets high in fresh fruit, including pears, have also gained a lot of attention for having anti-inflammatory and cancer protective effects — due to their high levels of essential nutrients like vitamin C, antioxidants and phytochemicals. Those essential nutrients and antioxidants make pears one of the better anti-inflammatory foods around.
Another important way pear nutrition benefits you? Pears also have antioxidant and anticarcinogen effects thanks to glutathione, a “super antioxidant” known to help prevent cancer, high blood pressure and stroke.
According to studies by the National Cancer Institute, consuming fresh fruit daily shows positive effects on the body’s ability to prevent cancer growth, reduce inflammation, remain in pH balance, decrease oxidative damage to lipids and improve antioxidant status in healthy humans. It’s also true that eating more fruits and veggies is the best way to detox your body of harmful substances and toxins. This is the primary reason that every year U.S. national policymakers set a national dietary goal to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among both children and adults.
4. Can Help with Weight Loss
Fruit and vegetable intake has been proposed to protect against obesity, according to extensive research. Over and over we see that the more fresh vegetables and fruit someone eats, the less likely she is to gain weight and struggle to maintain her health. Longitudinal studies among overweight adults find that a high-fiber diet coming from fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with slower weight gain, likely because fruits and vegetables are so nutrient-dense and low in calories. A pear is a great filling, hydrating snack that won’t weight you down — plus it’s easy to toss one in your bag and take it along with you during a busy day.
5. Helps Improve Heart Health
One of the most noteworthy pear nutrition benefits? Higher fruit intake is linked with lower rates of heart disease. Epidemiological studies show a correlation between a diet high in fruit and vegetables and a lower risk for cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks and strokes. The beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables are probably due to the presence of antioxidant phytochemicals that keep arteries clear, lower inflammation and prevent high levels of oxidative stress. We also know that the specific type of fiber found in pears called pectin is very useful in helping to lower cholesterol levels naturally.
When researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health followed adults over a 15-year period, they found that overall greater intake of fruits and vegetables was associated with lower risk of all-cause death, cancer and cardiovascular disease, which supports the general health recommendation to consume multiple servings of fruits and vegetables (ideally five to nine a day of different types). There’s also evidence accumulating for fruit having a protective role in strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diverticulosis and hypertension too.
6. Improves Digestion
As a high-fiber food that provides essential nutrients, eating more pears is a great way to prevent or treat digestive issues. In fact, adding more fiber to your diet from whole foods is the best natural constipation relief remedy there is. Pear nutrition benefits digestive health because of the pectin found in pears, which is considered to be a natural diuretic and has a mild laxative effect. This means either eating whole pears (including the skin), blending them into a smoothie or drinking pear juice can help regulate bowel movements, prevent water retention and decrease bloating.
Higher fruit intake is also correlated with better general digestive health, especially of the colon. The phytonutrients found in pears and other fruit protect the digestive organs from oxidative stress, help alkalize the body and balance pH levels. Eating more pears might also be beneficial as a natural hemorrhoid remedy and treatment.
7. Helps Fight Diabetes
Although pears and other fruits or vegetables contain natural sugars in the form of the fructose, higher fruit and vegetable intake is inversely associated with diabetes incidence, especially among women. After following over 9,600 adults ages 25–74 for about 20 years, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that eating five or more combined fruits and vegetables daily significantly cut the risk of diabetes formation. Researchers now know that certain flavonoids in fruits, including pears, can improve insulin sensitivity, which is key for preventing and treating diabetesin addition to weight gain.
Pears are considered a fruit low on the glycemic index. Each one has about 26 net grams of carbs, but because of the high fiber content in pears, they unleash sugar into the bloodstream slowly and therefore have a low glycemic load. Compared to eating packaged sweets filled with refined sugars that can negatively impact blood sugar levels, eating pears instead is a great way to appease your “sweet tooth” naturally without negative impacts.
8. Makes a Good Pre- or Post-Workout Snack
Like all fruit, eating pears can provide you with a quick boost of energy before a workout. Pears are a natural source of fructose and glucose that the body uses quickly to enhance physical performance, concentration and stamina, which makes pears excellent pre-workout snacks. You also need glucose after a workout to replenish glycogen reserves and help heal muscle tears, so consider having a pear along with a healthy source of protein as a post-workout meal or snack following exercise.
9. Helps Maintain Bone Health
Pears are a good source of two nutrients key to skeletal health: vitamin K and boron. Vitamin K deficiency puts you at great risk for bone-related disorders since it works with other essential nutrients like calcium, magnesium and phosphorus to prevent bone breakdown. In fact, some experts even consider vitamin K to potentially be the most important nutrient there is for fighting osteoporosis — vitamin k even builds bones better than calcium.
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