Think Pomegranates

The Many Health Benefits of Pomegranates 5 Reasons to Try This Antioxidant All-Star

By Jill Weisenberger, MS, RD, CDE Wednesday, February 27, 2008

As you peruse the grocery store aisles, it’s easy to bypass that pile of red, leathery, baseball-sized fruit. Pomegranates are an odd-looking “super food” to be sure, but crack one open and you’ll find a delicious source of antioxidants and nutrients. With disease-fighting properties, pomegranates are becoming popular in both whole and juice form. Here are 5 reasons to pick up a pomegranate, plus two delicious recipes to get you started…

The pomegranate, known as the royal fruit because of the crown on top, is bursting not just with a delicious sweet-tart juice, but also with antioxidants and disease-fighting phytochemicals. A staple of the Middle Eastern diet, the pomegranate has a rich history in literature, mythology and religion. It’s spoken of by Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and is mentioned more than two dozen times in the Bible.

And now, pomegranates are growing in popularity in the U.S. While there are many varieties of the fruit, most pomegranates in this country are of the California Wonderful variety. Known for its size, large seeds and sweetness, California Wonderfuls have been found to be especially rich in antioxidants.

While we’re loving the taste, scientists are studying the pomegranate’s potential role in fighting heart disease, cancer and other ails. Here are five fabulous reasons to eat a pomegranate today.

1. Low in calories, high in nutrition

Enjoy a medium-sized pomegranate for only 105 nutrient-packed calories. You’ll also get a hefty dose of blood pressure-lowering potassium, virtually no sodium, one gram of fiber, and about 10% of your recommended daily vitamin C intake. Eight ounces of the juice provides 160 calories and a bit more potassium than a medium-sized pomegranate.

Pomegranates and their juice have an abundance of antioxidants and phytochemicals, as well: anthocyanins (anti-inflammatory, cancer-fighting); catechins (anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory); ellagic acid (cancer-fighting).

Drinking pomegranate juice is known to raise the antioxidant capacity of the blood. Antioxidants neutralize damaging free radicals (organic molecules linked to aging, tissue damage and possibly disease) before they have a chance to attack your cells and DNA.

2. Improves heart health

One study found that drinking just more than eight ounces of pomegranate juice every day for three months improved blood flow to the heart in people with coronary heart disease. Forty-five participants drank either the juice or a placebo beverage made to look and taste like pomegranate juice. On average, blood flow to the heart improved 17% in the pomegranate group, but declined 18% in the placebo group in merely three months.
Other studies suggest that pomegranate juice might help prevent atherosclerosis and even clear clogged arteries. Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a condition in which plaque builds up in the arteries and reduces blood flow, potentially causing heart attack, stroke, or numbness and pain in the arms and legs.

People with diabetes may benefit from pomegranates, too, according to a 2006 study in the journal Atherosclerosis. Ten people with type 2 diabetes drank pomegranate juice for three months. Without affecting blood glucose or cholesterol levels, the juice appeared to lower the risk of atherosclerosis and slow the immune cells’ absorption of unhealthy LDL cholesterol. (See related article: Cholesterol Risk: A Numbers Game) This is especially important to people with diabetes because the condition increases the risk of heart disease two to four times.

3. Alzheimer’s protection

A daily glass of pomegranate juice might cut your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. When mice engineered to develop the disease at a young age were fed pomegranate juice, they showed greater learning and memory skills compared to mice who did not receive the juice. The juice-supplemented animals learned water maze tasks more quickly and swam faster.

Researchers then examined the mice’s brains and found that the supplemented mice had 50% less build-up of harmful proteins called beta-amyloid deposits. These proteins are associated with an increase in brain cell damage and may be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

4. Relief for your joints

Osteoarthritis affects 20 million Americans and is the most common joint disorder associated with aging. Pomegranate fruit extract may block enzymes that contribute to the disorder, according to researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. In laboratory tests, extracts of the fruit slowed the deterioration of human cartilage.

5. Cancer fighter

Could a glass a day keep prostate cancer away? Researchers at UCLA tested the theory that pomegranate juice could keep prostate cancer from returning. Forty-six men who had already been treated for prostate cancer drank eight ounces of pomegranate juice daily. The scientists measured the men’s blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a marker of prostate health and prostate cancer. The faster these levels double, the sooner a man is likely to see his prostate cancer return. The men’s overall PSA doubling time was nearly four times slower after they began drinking the juice. The results were so promising that a larger study is now underway.

The fruit also shows promise in shielding against other cancers, too. Laboratory studies have shown that various components of the pomegranate suppress the growth of human breast cancer cells. Studies with mice suggest that pomegranates could reduce the spread of lung cancer.

Health benefits aside, pomegranates are just plain fun to eat. But they can be messy if you’re not careful. Watch out for that staining spray of scarlet juice. Open a pomegranate haphazardly and you and your walls might look spray-painted. Follow this three-step process and you can leave the bleach – and paint – alone. 1. Slice the crown off and cut off the rind without going through to the fruit.2. Place the fruit into a bowl of water and break it into sections. Gently push the juice sacs (called arils) out. Discard everything else.3. Strain the water and enjoy the arils, seeds and all. The bright red color of the arils make them a cheerful addition to a spinach salad or a steamed green vegetable. Sprinkle them on vanilla ice cream, and use their juice in smoothies, marinades, sauces, and salad dressings.

Any dietitian worth her salt-free seasoning knows that the whole diet is more important to your health than any particular food. So don’t wash down a greasy burger and fries with pomegranate juice and have the false sense that you ate a healthful meal. Fill your diet with a variety of healthful foods jam-packed with fruits and vegetables. Pomegranates fit in perfectly.

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Bush Resignation?

The following "speech" was written recently by an ordinary Maineiac [a resident of the People's Republic of Maine]. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. This is an excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living.

The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.

I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people. I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners, including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied; People Died' crap either. If I were the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.

Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out spend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and the bastards are all over the globe.

You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor.'

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, well, dang it, you might just as well FedEx a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

So that's it. God bless what's left of America. Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, kiss off.