Pomegranate's Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Pomegranates contain a lot of antioxidants and other powerful phytochemicals that fight cancer, improve cardiometabolic biomarkers, protect against cognitive decline, and may help against bone density loss too.

  • However, most of the nutrients are in the peel, not the fruit! The peel can be freeze-dried and turned into a powder for use as a nutritional supplement, or applied topically for skin health benefits.

• Losing weight (healthily!) can be a challenge. Keeping that weight off can be even harder.

  • Today’s sponsor, the Mayo Clinic Diet, is a medically-backed, globally-trusted method that focuses on changing your daily routine by adding and breaking habits that make a difference to your weight.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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The 3 Best Moves To Do In The Morning (6:33)

The three moves are hamstring stretches, tabletop lifts, and side bends (sleeping in jeans is optional!):

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💊 MAIN FEATURE

Pomegranate Peel’s Potent Potential

Pomegranates have been enjoying a new surge in popularity in some parts, widely touted for their health benefits. What’s not so widely touted is that most of the bioactive compounds that give these benefits are concentrated in the peel, which most people in most places throw away.

They do exist in the fruit too! But if you’re discarding the peel, you’re missing out:

Food Applications and Potential Health Benefits of Pomegranate and its Derivatives

“That peel is difficult and not fun to eat though”

Indeed. Drying the peel, especially freeze-drying it, is a good first step:

Source: Effect of drying on the bioactive compounds, antioxidant, antibacterial and antityrosinase activities of pomegranate peel

Once it is freeze-dried, it is easy to grind it into a powder for use as a nutritional supplement.

“How useful is it?”

Studies with 500mg and 1000mg per day in people with cases of obesity and/or type 2 diabetes saw significant improvements in assorted biomarkers of cardiometabolic health, including blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol, and hemoglobin A1C:

• Effects of pomegranate extract supplementation on inflammation in overweight and obese individuals: A randomized controlled clinical trial

• Beneficial effects of pomegranate peel extract on plasma lipid profile, fatty acids levels and blood pressure in patients with diabetes mellitus type-2: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

It also has anticancer properties:

• Punicalagin, a polyphenol from pomegranate fruit, induces growth inhibition and apoptosis in human PC-3 and LNCaP cells

• Punica granatum (Pomegranate) activity in health promotion and cancer prevention 

• The extract from Punica granatum (pomegranate) peel induces apoptosis and impairs metastasis in prostate cancer cells

…and neuroprotective benefits:

• Long-term (15 mo) dietary supplementation with pomegranates attenuates cognitive and behavioral deficits

• Neuroprotective Effects of Pomegranate Peel Extract

• An Evaluation of the Effects of a Non-caffeinated Energy Dietary Supplement on Cognitive and Physical Performance

…and it may protect against osteopenia and osteoporosis, but we only have animal or in vitro studies so far, for example:

• Pomegranate Peel Extract Prevents Bone Loss in a Preclinical Model of Osteoporosis and Stimulates Osteoblastic Differentiation in Vitro

• Pomegranate and its derivatives can improve bone health through decreased inflammation and oxidative stress in an animal model of postmenopausal osteoporosis

Want to try it?

We don’t sell it, but you can buy pomegranates at your local supermarket, or buy the peel extract ready-made from online sources; here’s an example on Amazon for your convenience 😎

(the marketing there is for use of the 100% pomegranate peel powder as a face mask; it also has health benefits for the skin when applied topically, but we didn’t have time to cover that today)

Enjoy!

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Mayo Clinic Diet: effective, practical, and healthy weight loss

Losing weight (healthily!) can be a challenge. Keeping that weight off can be even harder. But, you don't have to do it alone:

The Mayo Clinic Diet is a medically-backed, globally-trusted method that focuses on changing your daily routine by adding and breaking habits that make a difference to your weight.

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📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession – by Dr. Daniel Levitin

Music has sometimes been touted as having cognitive benefits, by its practice and even by the passive experience of it. But what's the actual science of it?

Dr. Levitin, an accomplished musician and neuroscientist, explores and explains.

We learn about how music in all likelihood allowed our ancestors to develop speech, something that set us apart (and ahead!) as a species. How music was naturally-selected-for in accordance with its relationship with health. How processing music involves almost every part of the brain. How music pertains specifically to memory. And more.

As a bonus, as well as explaining a lot about our brain, this book offers those of us with limited knowledge of music theory a valuable overview of the seven main dimensions of music, too.

Bottom line: if you'd like to know more about the many-faceted relationship between music and cognitive function, this is a top-tier book about such.

Click here to check out "This Is Your Brain On Music", and learn more about yours!

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Wishing you the very most well-informed start to the week,

The 10almonds Team