Emerging research continues to strengthen the evidence that pomegranate extracts can be used to treat chronic inflammation, and the diseases that go along with it.

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, particularly those in the ellagitannin family, such as punicalagins and punicalins.

Prior research has already suggested that pomegranate may help prevent a number of inflammation-linked diseases. It has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer, to slow or even stop the formation of prostate tumors in mice, to increase the amount of oxygen available to the heart and to fight the onset of heart disease by preventing LDL ("bad") cholesterol from oxidizing. Long-term consumption of pomegranate juice has also been linked to improvement in the symptoms of erectile dysfunction.

A research team from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland was the first to demonstrate that pomegranate extract can act directly to combat inflammation. In a 2005 study, they 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.

The researchers followed this up with a study, published fall of 2008 in the Journal of Inflammation, in which they fed 175 milliliters of pomegranate extract to four rabbits, then compared them with two rabbits who had been given only water. All the rabbits were experiencing chronic inflammation.

The researchers found that the levels of antioxidant markers significantly increased and the levels of inflammation markers significantly decreased in the rabbits after they were given pomegranate extract.

Compared with the rabbits that had been given only water, the animals in the pomegranate extract group had 7 and 26 percent lower levels of the inflammation markers COX-1 and COX-2, respectively.

In addition, the levels of inflammatory compounds produced by cartilage cells also decreased.

Source: naturalnews.com