Food choices play a role on the state of our health. But we aren’t talking just about foods that should be avoided since they may cause high values of blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure, often, indeed, many foods are also beneficial. It is the case of pomegranate, and exactly of its juice, a powerful source of antioxidant polyphenols with a cardio protective action and useful to keep under control blood pressure. This hypotensive effect of pomegranate juice was demonstrated a few months ago thanks to a study, whose results were published in the journal Clinical nutrition ESPEN by an Iranian team.
The scientists recruited 60 persons with type 2 diabetes. The participants were divided into two groups. The first group, the intervention group, was asked to drink every day for 6 weeks 200 ml of pomegranate juice, the second group, that in the following we will call the control group, instead didn’t drink any juice. After the 6 weeks the intervention group showed values of systolic, namely the maximum, and diastolic, the minimum, blood pressure lower than the initial values before the treatments and also lower than the control group. For what concerns the values of cholesterol and triglycerides after the intake of pomegranate juice, a decrease after the treatment was observed, however, there was no significant difference with the control group.
The study is for sure preliminary, the analyzed sample is indeed too small, just 60 persons, moreover, the results about the effects of the pomegranate juice on cholesterol and triglycerides aren’t clear and definitive. However, beyond these considerations, from this study it emerges a result, and that the pomegranate, also in the form of juice, protects the health of the heart by acting on blood pressure.
