Safety and antioxidant activity of a pomegranate ellagitannin-enriched polyphenol dietary supplement in overweight individuals with increased waist size.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Antioxidants, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Pomegranate extracts, which incorporate the major antioxidants found in pomegranates, namely, ellagitannins, have been developed as botanical dietary supplements to provide an alternative convenient form for consuming the bioactive polyphenols found in PJ.

Despite the commercial availability of pomegranate extract dietary supplements, there have been no studies evaluating their safety in human subjects.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 64 individuals taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, placebo-controlled and pilot.

The individuals were allocated by chance, so the Antioxidants group and the comparison group should start out alike.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Antioxidants group a baseline to be compared against.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Antioxidants study would be practical.

What Was Measured

Despite the commercial availability of pomegranate extract dietary supplements, there have been no studies evaluating their safety in human subjects.

A pomegranate ellagitannin-enriched polyphenol extract (POMx) was prepared for dietary supplement use and evaluated in two pilot clinical studies.

The subject headings attached to it are Antioxidants, Consumer Product Safety, Dietary Supplements, Flavonoids, Hydrolyzable Tannins, Lythraceae and Obesity.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and pilot study of Antioxidants in 64 individuals.

The publication is from 2007 (Journal of agricultural and food chemistry), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.