Pomegranate juice may help diabetics Cardiovascular disease aside, few diseases are as hard on your heart as diabetes. In fact, diabetes pretty much guarantees heart disease sooner or later if you don't take care of yourself. But I've recently learned that one of my favorite things-pomegranate juice-might actually help reduce diabetes sufferers' risk of heart disease.
In a recent study out of Israel, researchers decided to analyze the effects that drinking a specially prepared glass of concentrated pomegranate juice (which was equivalent to a 6-ounce glass of regular pomegranate juice) for three months on a group of 10 healthy adults and 10 adults with type 2 diabetes.
While drinking pomegranate juice didn't have much effect on the participants' overall cholesterol levels, researchers found that the juice did cause a reduction in how quickly peoples' immune cells absorbed "bad" LDL cholesterol-a major factor in heart disease. And they found that the juice was especially effective at reducing the risk of atherosclerosis (when the hearts' arteries harden).
Diabetes patients have a much higher risk of atherosclerosis, which can contribute to all sorts of heart problems, including coronary heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and other circulation problems.
The researchers think that it's the antioxidants in pomegranate juice that make it so heart-healthy.
You see, because of their blood sugar problems, diabetics often have to limit their intakes of certain juices, because the sugar content might be too high. But in pomegranate juice the sugar is attached to unique antioxidants, which actually give these sugars a protective quality, rather than a dangerous one. If you drink it with meals or snacks, its sugars will be released much more slowly into your bloodstream, which moderates the rise in blood sugar, blunting its impact on insulin production, all desirable effects.
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