Health Benefits of Pomegranate and It’s Nutrition Facts

Pomegranate comes with a range of different nutrients that help in improving overall health and nutrition. When it comes to nutrition, pomegranate is one fruit to not skip for all the right reasons. In this article, we’ll see how pomegranate is among the best fruits to consume.

Nutrition Facts of Pomegranate

The arils or the pink seeds present in the pomegranate fruit are edible. What’s more, pomegranates are high in their mineral, vitamin, and fiber content. They also contain some amount of protein as well. Here are some benefits of consuming pomegranate. In a normal-sized pomegranate fruit, here are the nutrition facts:

Comparatively, half a cup of 87 grams of arils gives us about 72 calories, 16g of carbs, 3.5g of dietary fiber, 1g of fat, and about 1.5g of protein. You will need to put it in your mind that the overall nutrient information of pomegranate, as well as the pink seed, will differ from the juice as it wouldn’t have either fiber or vitamin C content in that much quantity. It will apply to the fruits in general, no matter the type.

Pomegranates in the fruit form are low in fat and calories and high in vitamins, fiber, and minerals. They even come with some amounts of protein. You can get the most benefits in vitamins, fiber, and minerals as well.

Health Benefits of Pomegranate:

Pomegranate comes with the following health benefits for individuals.

1) Highly Rich in Antioxidants

Antioxidants are special compounds that help in the protection of the cells of your body from damage which is caused by free radicals in the body. Free radicals are almost always inside your body. However, too much of their intake is also negative for the body, and they may play a role in different chronic conditions as well.

These are also rich in compounds called polyphenols which offer special prevention from such damage. The bioactive components present with antioxidant activity are present in pomegranates and are termed anthocyanins, hydrolyzable tannins, punicalagin, and more.

Having antioxidants from different plant-based foods, including pomegranates, is a helpful way to aid overall better health and prevent the disease from occurring. So, these are highly rich in terms of different antioxidant compounds, which help to protect your cells from free radical damage.

2) Might Reduce Inflammation

Inflammation is the normal response of the body to injury and infection. On the contrary, chronic inflammation might get as a problem if it is left to be untreated, and it is quite a common problem nowadays, specifically in the Western world.

When inflammation is not sufficiently addressed, it may play a role in a number of conditions, which include type two diabetes, memory problems, and heart disease. Consuming pomegranates might help in the prevention of chronic inflammation, which is associated with compounds recognized as punicalagin. These are known to come with a range of different anti-inflammatory as well as antioxidant properties in both in vivo and in vitro studies.

Some human scientific studies have seen that the consumption of pomegranate juice influences inflammation in individuals.

3) Might Protect Against Cancer

Some in vitro science studies show that the different compounds present in this fruit, oil, and juice as well may help in killing the cancer cells or even reduce the spread of cancer in the body. Both in vitro and human trials show that this fruit might help in fighting inflammation and also slow down the growth of cancer.

In reality, the fruit is shown to have an anti-tumor influence on cancer of the prostate, colon, skin, breast, and lung. Other studies on animals suggest that pomegranate helps in slowing tumor growth in the preliminary stages of cancer. Liver cancer is also shown to be responsive in its early stages, all thanks to pomegranate.

Older test tube studies suggest that pomegranate extract might be useful to slow down the growth and even cause cell death of different cancer cells. When it comes to prostate cancers, the prostate-specific antigen is a biomarker of cancer in the blood. If the levels of this biomarker get doubled in a short span of time, it may indicate a reduced risk of getting a high mortality rate from cancer.

Two older studies show that giving the extract of pomegranate improved the overall PSA, doubling time to a significant period and reducing the overall risk of death from prostate cancer. Nevertheless, most human studies are required. Pomegranate has been required to have anti-cancer effects. It might be slowing the tumor growth as well as reducing inflammation, although there is a need for more research.

4) Might Provide Cardiac Health Benefits

Evidence suggests that fruits that are rich in polyphenolic compounds might also have beneficial effects on the heart. What’s more, in-vitro studies find that pomegranate extract might help in the reduction of oxidative stress as well as inflammation in the lowering blood pressure and arteries, help fight atherosclerosis, which is the buildup of plaque in arteries which may lead to stroke and heart attack.

A human study showed the effects of pomegranate juice on people for five days. It showed that pomegranate juice intake significantly decreased the overall intensity as well as the frequency of chest pain and biomarkers present in the blood, suggesting a beneficial effect of the fruit on cardiac health. Still, research of high quality is lacking in this area.

As we can infer from this, pomegranate might help in the reduction of inflammation as well as blood pressure in arteries and help fight the buildup of plaque that may lead to strokes, chest pain, and heart attacks.

5) May Support Urinary Health

Human studies and in vitro studies found that extract of pomegranate might help in the reduction of kidney stone formation, which is a benefit highly attributed to its antioxidant action. A research study also suggested that adults with ages 18 to 70 experiencing this condition were given about 1 gram of the pomegranate extract for three months. It showed to play an inhibitory mechanism through which stones get formed in our body.

What’s more, different animal model-based studies suggest that pomegranate extract might help in the regulation of the concentration of phosphates, calcium, and oxalates in the blood, which are quite common in kidney stones. Compounds present in the fruit might help in the prevention of kidney stones, possibly as a consequence of the different antioxidant properties present in it.

6) Might Have Different Antimicrobial Characteristics

The active compounds present in pomegranate might aid in fighting different microbes in the body, such as bacteria, yeast, and fungi. For example, different studies indicate it to have a protective health benefit through targeting different oral germs, which may turn out to be problematic, such as tooth decay or bad breath. A study also indicated that the compounds from the fruit also came with effects against Listeria monocytogenes bacteria that might indicate severe illness when ingested.

In short, pomegranate comes with different compounds which may help in fighting harmful bacteria, yeasts, and fungi, and different germs in the oral cavity, which may result in tooth decay and other problems.

7) Might Improve Endurance to Physical Activity

The antioxidant compounds in pomegranates help to improve the overall exercise and physical activity endurance, the time that you can endure doing a physical activity before getting to the tiring point. A study indicated one gram of the pomegranate extract half an hour before running helped in increasing the time to exhaustion up to 12%.

Another study suggests supplements of pomegranate to be able to improve the overall muscle recovery and endurance to exercise. However, there is a need for more research on muscle recovery, and studies in this area are needed. In summary, pomegranates come with active compounds that improve the overall recovery and endurance in exercise.

8) Improves Brain Performance

Pomegranates come with ellagitannins, which are beneficial antioxidants and help in the reduction of inflammation present in the body. What’s more, they come with several beneficial effects for your mind against different conditions that may get affected by oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.

Research studies also suggest that ellagitannins might help in protecting the brain from getting Alzheimer’s Disease as well as Parkinsonism through the reduction of oxidative damage in the body as well as improving the survival chance of the brain cells. What’s more, these compounds also help in the recovery from HBI or hypo-ischemic brain injury. The compounds are indicated to produce urolithin A compound in the gut, which helps in the reduction of brain inflammation and helps in slowing the progress of neurodegenerative diseases.

However, there is a need for more research in order to form a connection and better understand between brain health and pomegranate.

These are all the different nutrition facts as well as the health benefits of pomegranate