Pomegranate is one of the twenty two ingredients contained in SenSatiaFruit.

Pomegranates are native to southeastern Europe and Asia and were grown in ancient Egypt, Babylon, India and Iran. Cultured extensively in Spain (The name comes from Pomme de Granada, "apple of Granada"), pomegranates moved with missionaries into Mexico and California in the 16th century.

Pomegranate is a delicious fruit with many beneficial compounds. Pomegranate has substances, such as polyphenols, that have antioxidant, anti-viral, and anti-tumor activity.

Pomegranate may also be helpful in maintaining healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and a recent study indicates pomegranate has compounds that play a role in osteoarthritis and prostate health.

Used extensively by many cultures around the world as a medicinal fruit, Pomegranates are now the subject of an amazing amount of medical and scientific research.  

Pomegranates are chock full of antioxidants called phytochemicals that protect plants from disease, but notably they also have the same effect on humans.

Polyphenols are a kind of potent phytochemical that protects our cells, and tannins are a particularly active polyphenol found in pomegranates, red wine and green tea.

The specific tannins in pomegranate are believed to be 3 times stronger than those in red wine and green tea, however, and among them is an especially remarkable tannin called ellagic acid.

Current research shows that ellagic acid has two enormously important benefits for the cardiovascular system. First, it clearly helps promote healthy blood pressure, particularly systolic pressure, which is the peak pressure generated in the arteries when the heart beats. Apparently, it accomplishes this action by increasing nitric oxide production, which keeps blood vessels open. And second, it also helps maintain LDL cholesterol levels already in the normal range. Plus, it supports the health of arterial walls.

Drinking pomegranate juice may protect diabetics from developing heart disease, according to a new Israeli study published in the August issue of the journal Atherosclerosis.

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers say that pomegranate juice may provide important health benefits for diabetic patients. According to results published in the August 2006 issue of Atherosclerosis, subjects who drank 180 ml (6 oz.) of pomegranate juice per day for three months experienced a reduced risk for atherosclerosis, a condition that leads to arterial wall thickening and hardening. Atherosclerosis accounts for 80% of all deaths among diabetic patients.
 
The researchers also found that drinking pomegranate juice reduced the uptake of oxidized LDL (“bad” cholesterol) by large, versatile immune cells known as macrophages. Oxidized LDL uptake by macrophages is a main contributing factor to the development of atherosclerosis.

One surprising finding, said lead researcher Professor Michael Aviram of the Technion Faculty of Medicine, was that the sugars contained in pomegranate juice – although similar in content to those found in other fruit juices – did not worsen diabetes disease parameters (including blood sugar levels) in the patients, but in fact reduced the risk for atherosclerosis.

A new animal study published in the journal Neurobiology of Disease has found that dietary intake of antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice may reduce the buildup of harmful proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease by half.

Drinking an eight-ounce glass of pomegranate juice daily increased by nearly four times the period during which PSA levels in men treated for prostate cancer remained stable, a three-year UCLA study has found.

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