Although the survival rate of five years for men with prostate cancer has increased from 67% in the 1970s to 90% in recent years, prostate cancer is still the United State's most common cancer, aside from skin cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men. The primary method of management for this disease is either radical surgery or radiation therapy. In this study, researchers sought to determine whether pomegranate juice consumption would have an effect on PSA (prostate-specific antigen) progression in patients who have undergone primary management to cure the disease, as those patients who have had primary management to cure the disease and no documented evidence of metastatic disease have limited treatment options.



The pomegranate fruit, which has been used for centuries for its medicinal purposes, shows potent antioxidant and anti-artherosclerotic properties which are accredited to its high content of polyphenols. To study the possible effects of pomegranate juice, researchers conducted a 2-year clinical trial at the Clark Urologic Center, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles. Those patients who were eligible has a detectable PSA between 0.2 and 5 ng/mL, no hormonal therapy before entering the study, no evidence of metastatic disease, and a Gleason score less than or equal to seven. The Gleason test is used to grade the severity of prostate cancer based on the five patterns that prostate tumor cells go through as they change from normal cells. PSA, which is an antigen in the blood that is measured to track the progression of prostate cancer, usually signifies presence or growth of cancer when it is elevated. The time that is required for the PSA to double demonstrates the rate of growth of the cancer.

So in general, PSA rises slowly as it matches the fact that prostate cancer is a slow-growing cancer. In this study, each patient had a minimum of three pretreatment PSA values measured over a minimum of six months before they entered the study. Each patient was treated with eight ounces of pomegranate juice, by mouth, daily until the disease progressed. The patients showed a fifteen percent reduction in resistance of their serum samples, a twelve percent decrease in cell proliferation, a seventeen percent increase in apoptosis reduction in oxidative state, and a twenty-three percent increase in serum nitric oxide was also reported. No serious side-effects were reported and the treatment was well tolerated by its patients. The researches concluded that this study showed significant results that pomegranate juice had many positive effects on those men dealing with prostate cancer.

However, the researchers feel that further research is needed to prove the validity of the tests. The results are being further tested in another study which began in April of 2006. The ability of pomegranate juices doses to produce predefined alteration in PSA kinetics is being compared to the change observed in the control group in this new study. The results demonstrated from this study are positive and there will be further research into other plant polyphenols which could possibly mediate similar effects. So don't forget to have your pomegranate or herbal tea high in polyphenols.