The future of cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment will not be discovered in your medication cabinet, rather in your kitchen cabinet or in your back yard growing on a tree.

Pomegranate Found To Prevent Coronary Artery Disease Development

A research study released in the journal Atherosclerosis validates that pomegranate extract might avoid and/or reverse the primary pathology connected with cardiac mortality: the progressive thickening of the coronary arteries triggered by the build-up of fatty materials known as atherosclerosis. [i] Mice with a genetic susceptibility towards spontaneous coronary artery clogs were provided pomegranate extract via their drinking water for two weeks, beginning at three weeks of age. In spite of the reality that pomegranate treatment actually increased cholesterol levels connected with extremely low density lipoprotein-sized particles, the treatment both reduced the size of the atherosclerotic plaques in the aortic sinus (the dilated opening above the aortic valve) and minimized the proportion of coronary arteries with occlusive atherosclerotic plaques.

Extremely, the researchers also discovered that pomegranate extract treatment led to the following 7 advantageous effects:

1. Lowered levels of oxidative stress
2. Minimized monocytie chemotactic protein-1, a chemical messenger (chemokine) connected with inflammatory processes within the arteries.
3. Lowered lipid accumulation in the heart muscle
4. Decreased macrophage infiltration in the heart muscle
5. Minimized levels of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 and fibrosis in the myocardium
6. Reduced heart augmentation
7. Reduced ECG irregularities

How can something as benign and prevalent as a fruit extract reverse a lot of elements of coronary artery disease, all at once, as evidenced by the study above? The response may lie in the fact that our forefathers co-evolved with particular foods (fruits in specific) for so long that an absence of sufficient amounts of these foods might straight lead to weakening organ function. Two-time Nobel Reward winner Linus Pauling argued that vitamin C shortage is a basic cause of cardiovascular illness, owing to the reality that our hominid primate forefathers once had year-round access to fruits, and as an outcome lost the capability to manufacture it.

There’s another obvious hint as to how pomegranate may work its artery opening magic. Anyone who has actually ever tasted pomegranate, or consumed the juice, knows it has a remarkable astringency, providing your mouth and gums that dry, puckering mouth feel. This cleansing sensation is technically triggered, similar to all astringents, by diminishing and decontaminating your mucous membranes.

Anyone who drinks pomegranate juice, or is fortunate enough to consume one fresh, can comprehend why it is so efficient at cleaning the circulatory system. Nature definitely planted sufficient poetic visual ideas there for us: its juice looks like blood, and it does resemble a multi-chambered heart, at least when you consider its appearance in comparison to most other fruits.

Undoubtedly, your mouth and your arteries are lined with the same cell type: epithelial cells. Together, they comprise the epithelium, among four basic tissue types within animals, along with connective tissue, muscle tissue and worried tissue, and which makes up the interior walls of the entire circulatory system. So, when you feel that remarkable cleansing result in your mouth, this is in truth akin to what your circulatory system– and the epithelium/endothelium lining the within your veins and arteries– “feels” too.

The Pomegranate “Artery Cleansing” Clinical Trial

The study consisted of nineteen patients, 5 women and 14 guys, aged 65-75, non-smokers. They were randomized to get either pomegranate juice or placebo. Ten clients were in the pomegranate juice treatment group and 9 clients that did not take in pomegranate juice were in the control group. Both groups were matched with similar blood lipid and glucose concentrations, high blood pressure, and with comparable medication programs which included blood-pressure lowering (e.g. ACE inhibitors, ?-blockers, or calcium channel blockers) and lipid lowering drugs (e.g. statins).

The 10 clients in the treatment group got 8.11 ounces (240 ml) of pomegranate juice daily, for a duration of 1 year, and five out of them consented to continue for approximately 3 years.

The impressive results were reported as follows:

“The mean intima media density the left and ideal typical carotid arteries in serious carotid artery stenosis patients that taken in pomegranate juice for up to 1 year was minimized after 3, 6, 9 and 12 months of pomegranate juice consumption by 13%, 22%, 26% and 35%, respectively, in contrast to baseline worths.”

You can just imagine what would occur if a pharmaceutical drug was revealed to reverse plaque develop up in the carotid arteries by 13% in simply 3 months! This drug would be lauded the life-saving wonder drug, and not only would be promoted and sold successfully as a multi-billion dollar smash hit, however discussion would inevitably follow regarding why it needs to be mandated.

While these outcomes are excellent, if not entirely groundbreaking for the field of cardiology, they may be even much better than revealed in the specified restorative outcomes above. When one consider that the carotid artery stenosis increased 9% within 1 year in the control group, the pomegranate intervention group may have seen even better results than shown by the measured regression in intima media density alone. That is, if we presume that the pomegranate group had actually gotten no treatment, the thickening of their carotid arteries would have continued to progress like the control group at a rate of 9% a year, i.e. 18% within 2 years, 27% within 3 years. This could be translated to imply that after 3 years of pomegranate treatment, for example, the thickening of the arteries would have been lowered over 60% beyond what would have taken place had the natural progression of the illness been permitted to continue unabated.

3 Ways How Pomegranate Heals The Cardiovascular System

The scientists determined three likely mechanisms of action behind pomegranate’s observed anti-atherosclerotic activity:

• Antioxidant residential or commercial properties: Topics getting pomegranate saw significant decreases in oxidative stress, including decreases in autoantibodies formed against ox-LDL, a kind of oxidized low density lipoprotein related to the pathological procedure of atherosclerosis. Reduces in oxidative stress were quantifiable by a boost in the blood serum enzyme paraoxonase 1 (PON1) of approximately 91% after 3 years; PON1 is an enzyme whose heightened activity is connected with lower oxidative tension. All of this is extremely appropriate to the question of pomegranate’s anti-atherosclerotic activity since of something called the lipid peroxidation hypothesis of atherosclerosis, which assumes that it is the quality of the blood lipids (i.e. whether they are oxidized/damaged or not), and not their quantity alone that identify their cardiotoxicity/atherogenicity. Essentially, pomegranate prevents the heart problem promoting results of oxidative tension.
• Blood Pressure Decreasing Properties: The intervention resulted in substantial improvement in blood pressure: the client’s systolic blood pressure was lowered 7%, 11%,10%, 10% and 12% after 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months of pomegranate consumption, respectively, compared to worths obtained before treatment. Pomegranate’s ability to minimize systolic high blood pressure shows it has a healing result on the endothelium, or the inner lining of the artery which fails to relax totally in heart illness; a condition called endothelial dysfunction.
• Plaque Sore Stabilization: Due to the fact that 2 of the 10 patients on PJ (after 3 and 12 months) experienced medical wear and tear, carotid surgery was performed and the sores were analyzed to determine the distinction in their structure to those who did not receive pomegranate. The researchers noticed 4 unique favorable distinctions in the structure of the pomegranate-treated sores: 1. Lowered Cholesterol Material: “The cholesterol material in carotid sores from the two clients that consumed PJ was lower by 58% and 20%, respectively, in comparison to sores obtained from CAS clients that did not take in PJ (Fig. 3A).” 2. Reduced Lipid Peroxides: ” [T] he lipid peroxides content in lesions acquired from the patients after PJ intake for 3 or 12 months was substantially decreased by 61% or 44%, respectively, as compared to sores from patients that did not take in PJ (Fig. 3B). 3. Increased Minimized Glutathione Content: “A considerable increase in the sore decreased glutathione (GSH) content, (GSH is a significant cellular antioxidant) by 2.5-fold, was observed after PJ intake for 3 or 12 months, (Fig. 3C). 4. Decreased LDL Oxidation: “LDL oxidation by sores originated from the clients after PJ usage for 3 or 12 months, was considerably (Po0.01) reduced by 43% or 32%, respectively, in comparison to LDL oxidation rates gotten by sores from CAS patients that did not consume PJ (Fig. 3D).”

Essentially these results reveal that not only does pomegranate decrease the sore size in the carotid arteries, however “the lesion itself may be thought about less atherogenic after PJ intake, as its cholesterol and oxidized lipid material decreased, and because its capability to oxidize LDL was significantly minimized.”

This finding is rather innovative, as presently, the threats of carotid artery stenosis are comprehended primarily through the lesion size and not by evaluating for the quality of that sore. This dovetails with the idea that the sheer quantity of lipoproteins (i.e. “cholesterol”) in the blood can not properly expose whether those lipoproteins are actually damaging (atherogenic); rather, if lipoproteins are oxidized (e.g. ox-LDL) they can be damaging (or agent of a more systemic bodily imbalance), whereas non-oxidized low density lipoprotein might be considered completely benign, if not vital for cardiovascular and body wide health. In this research study the scientists found the pomegranate group had increased levels of triglycerides and really low density lipoprotein, again, underscoring that the anti-atherosclerotic residential or commercial properties likely have more to do with the better quality of the physiological milieu within which all our lipoproteins operate than the number of them, in and of itself.

It must be pointed out that all the clients in this research study were undergoing standard, drug-based care for cardiovascular illness, e.g. cholesterol- and blood pressure-lowering representatives. Not only did the pomegranate treatment not appear to interfere with their drugs, making it an ideal complementary/adjunct therapy for those on pharmaceuticals, however it needs to be explained that the control group’s condition got progressively worse (e.g. the mean IMT increased 9% within 1 year), speaking to simply how inadequate drugs are, or how they may even add to the velocity of the illness procedure itself.

Additional Validation of Pomegranate’s Artery-Clearing Characteristic

Pomegranate’s worth in cardiovascular health might be quiet broad, as evidenced by the following experimentally confirmed properties:

Likewise, view our devoted research section on reversing arterial plaque: