Consuming fruit is good for your health, and there are claims that an apple a day helps keep the doctor away. A new cross-sectional study shows that eating an apple a day doesn’t keep us away from doctors compared to not eating apples, but it does seem to help keep pharmacists away. Researchers Matthew A. Davis of the Geisel School of Medicine and others enrolled 8,728 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 in a 24-hour dietary review questionnaire. A total of 8,399 subjects completed the questionnaire, including 753 who ate at least one small apple per day and 7,646 who did not eat apples. Further analysis revealed that compared to non-apple eaters, those who ate apples daily were more educated, less likely to smoke, had no more than one medical visit in a year, and had no prescription medications, but there were no differences in hospitalization or psychologist visits one month earlier. After correcting for sociodemographic factors and health-related characteristics, the association between apple intake and avoidance of medical treatment was no longer statistically significant (OR=1.19, 95% CI: 0.93-1.53; P=0.15), but apple eaters were still less likely to use prescribed medications. These results do not support the claim that “eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Eating an apple a day does not keep us away from doctors, but people who eat an apple a day certainly pay more attention to health and healthier living and eating habits, so eating an apple a day seems to reduce the use of prescription drugs for a small group of adults.