Pomegranate Power

If these fruits are not on your shopping list, add them now if you want to treat chronic inflammation, and the diseases that go along with it.

Previous research has already suggested that pomegranates may help prevent or reduce the risk of a number of inflammation-linked diseases, including breast and prostate cancer. It also has a role in preventing heart disease by increasing the amount of oxygen it receives and the way it prevents LDL (“bad”) cholesterol from oxidizing. Some evidence is also linking it improvements in the symptoms of erectile dysfunction, if the juice is taken over a long period of time.

Short-term inflammation is a normal immune response, but chronic inflammation has been linked to a number of diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, dementia and autoimmune disorders. Scientists are increasingly coming to believe that pomegranate helps combat inflammation, in part due to its exceptionally high content of antioxidants.

Pomegranate extract was first shown to combat inflammation as long ago as a 2005 study which showed that when injected into human cells, pomegranate extract lowered inflammation and levels of enzymes that can cause cartilage to break down, as in arthritis.

More research followed which confirmed this and the latest is from the University of South Carolina and is the first to study its effects in human cells. Pomegranates are something I always associate with winter, and that cheery red and yellow skin is hiding a powerhouse of benefits so make sure you eat the fruit – one by one with a hatpin as was traditional in my house – or save yourself time and effort and buy the juice!

The healthiest seasonal fruit

Whatever their eating habits for the rest of the year, Christmas seems to bring out the desire to load our sideboards with groaning bowls of fruit. Usually satsumas and clementines are favourites, and they certainly are healthy, but there is another winter fruit that I associate with this dark time of year and that is the pomegranate. As a child I was diverted for hours by being given my mother’s old hatpin and a pomegranate. It was ceremoniously cut in half and then I focused on winkling out the seeds and pulling ugly faces if by any mischance I got some of the bitter yellow pith.

Pomegranates have become the fashionable fruit over the past year and now you can find its juice in every chiller cabinet so I thought a reminder of its benefits might encourage you to add them to your shopping trolley. As this is a spiritual time of year, you might like to know that ancient scholars believed that: the number of seeds (roughly 613) found in a single fruit corresponded to the 613 commands of the Hebrew Torah. Now, that could keep the kids quiet as they counted every one before they ate it!

Health wise, the pomegranate contains at least a dozen known anti-inflammatory phytochemicals and around 36 antioxidants. Studies have suggested that both the fruit and its juice are beneficial to help treat or prevent heart disease, high cholesterol, prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s. However, if you don’t like the taste then stock up on other fruits such as cherries, blueberries, and raspberries, as they also give you similar health benefits.