Pomegranate juice an arthritis fighter

Pomegranate juice reduces inflammation and may help fight arthritis according to a new study in which scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio gave extracts of the fruit to rabbits.

After testing the level of activity of proteins known to trigger inflammation in the rabbits’ blood it was found that pomegranate extracts had inhibited the activity of many of the proteins by almost half. Previous experiments had shown that pomegranate extract could reduce inflammation in samples of animal tissues but it was not known about effects in living animals.

University researcher Tariq Haqqi said that eating pomegranate or drinking the fruit juice could also avoid the side effects that may result from long-term use of current anti-inflammatory drugs. But he said that further research was needed to understand how well the juice extract was absorbed into the blood stream.

The US Food and Drug Administration has recently announced an investigation into a class of drugs used to treat arthritis because of concerns that they might be linked to the development of cancer. The agency said it had received 30 reports in the past 1- years that the drugs known as tumor necrosis factor blockers had caused cancer in children and young adults.