You will not find the solution for cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment in the modern medicine books, but rather in your back yard growing on a tree.
Pomegranate is found to prevent coronary artery disease progression
The journal Atherosclerosis published an interesting study in which they confirm that pomegranate extract may reverse or/and prevent the primary pathology associated with cardiac mortality: the accumulation of fatty materials on the coronary arteries known as atherosclerosis.
Pomegranate extract was given to mice with a genetic proneness towards spontaneous coronary artery blockages through drinking water for two weeks, when they had three weeks of age. The treatment reduced both the proportion of the coronary arteries with occlusive atherosclerotic plaques and the size of the atherosclerotic plaques in the aortic sinus (the dilated opening above the aortic valve), despite the fact that pomegranate treatment actually increased cholesterol levels associated with very low density lipoprotein-sized particles.
What really surprised the researchers,were the other beneficial effects of the pomegranate extract treatment:
- Reduced lipid accumulation in the heart muscle
- Reduced ECG abnormalities
- Reduced levels of oxidative stress
- Reduced cardiac enlargement
- Reduced monocytie chemotactic protein-1, a chemical messenger (chemokine) associated with inflammatory processes within the arteries.
- Reduced levels of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 and fibrosis in the myocardium
- Reduced macrophage infiltration in the heart muscle
They asked themselves, how can something as commonplace and benign as a fruit extract reverse so many aspects of coronary artery disease, simultaneously, as it was evidenced by the study above? They say that the answer might be found in the fact that our ancestors evolved together with certain foods (fruits in particular) for so long that a lack of adequate quantities of these foods may directly result in deteriorating organ function. Linus Pauling,two-time Nobel Prize winner discussed that the fundamental cause of cardiovascular disease is the deficiency of vitamin C, leading us to the fact that our primate ancestors once had access to fruits all year-round, and as a result lost the ability to synthesize it.
Discussion
This study only confirmed the already extant clinical research indicating that pomegranate can help unclog your arteries. For example, back in 2004, the results of a three year clinical trial in an Israeli population were published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, finding that the regular consumption of pomegranate juice every day successfullyreversed carotid artery stenosis by up to 29% in a period of 1 year. Remarkably, the blockages in the control group were increased by 9%, which was more than an indication that pomegranate’s artery unblocking effects were even bigger than anyone could imagine.
The following experimentally confirmed properties are evidenced that pomegranate’s value in cardiovascular disease is enormous:
- Anti-Infective: Secondary viral and bacterial infection are often involvedin the plaque buildup in the arteries, including Chlamydia pneumoniae and hepatitis C. Pomegranate has a broad range of anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.
- Anti-inflammatory: Inflammation,like many chronic degenerative diseases, plays a significant role in the cardiovascular disease pathogenesis. The anti-inflammatory properties of the pomegranate are published in five studies on GreenMedInfo.com.
- Blood-Pressure Lowering: A natural angiotensin is contained in the pomegranate juice,which is a nitric oxide enhancer converting the enzyme inhibiting properties, in two well-known pathways for reducing blood pressure. Finally, pomegranate extract is rich in punicalagin which is found to reduce the adverse effects of perturbed stress on arterial segments exposed to disturbed flow.
- Antioxidant: Oxidation is one of the ways in which blood lipids become heart disease-promoting (atherogenic). LDL, for example, can be technically increased but harmless as long as it does not oxidize. The measurement of the serum paraoxonase levels has shown that the pomegranate reduces the oxidative stress in the blood. In one of the studies conductedon mice,they found that this decrease in oxidative stress was associated with 44% reduction in the size of atherosclerotic lesions.
Source : www.healthy-holistic-living.com
