Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine

To modern scientists, the biochemistry of the pomegranate is as equally fascinating as its storied place in literature and religion. Providing an unprecedented compilation of current information, Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine explores the biochemistry, health effects, and cultivation of this exceptionally polyphenol-rich fruit. Discussing its biochemistry, many of the researchers responsible for initiating our newfound fascination with the pomegranate examine the fruit's preventive potential against two of the major chronic diseases of aging, heart disease and cancer, detailing the location, action, and bioavailability of the phytochemicals found in the fruit's flesh, peels, and seeds. Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine-Identifies more than 100 different phytochemicals found in the pomegranate, Presents laboratory, animal, and human studies demonstrating the pomegranate's antioxidative properties and its consequent impact on heart disease, Builds on the work of Nobel Prize winner Lou Ignarro to demonstrate the pomegranate's ability to enhance nitric oxide production in endothelial cells, Includes dramatic research demonstrating the pomegranate's power to retard prostate cancer, Details findings with regard to the significant antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects attributed to the pomegranate in battling several different types of cancer cells in cell culture and animals, Established the bioavailability and metabolism of pomegranate polyphenols in humans, Recognizing that the pomegranate is only as valuable as it is available, the editors include a substantial section on commercialization and another on plant growth and improvement. These additions make this text as uniquely essential for botanists and agriculturists as it is for nutritionists, cancer researchers, natural products chemists, pharmacognosists, and those producers and consumers of botanical supplements seeking to evaluate both the pomegranate's legacy and future as a powerful natural healing agent. Book jacket.