Pomegranate Juice May Improve Sperm Quality

[Harry Hirsute]

The health-benefits of pomegranate have focussed almost exclusively on the pulp and juice of the fruit, most notably in fruit form although extracts are also gaining increasing attention. The antioxidant-rich fruit have been linked to improved heart health, and claims that it may offer protection against prostate cancer, Alzheimer's, and may slow cartilage loss in arthritis.

It is these antioxidants, and particularly compounds like punicalagin, which accounts for about half of the fruit's antioxidant ability, that are reportedly behind the proposed health benefits.

The new study suggests the health benefits of the fruit may also extend to improving fertility, and comes only months after a pilot study reported that pomegranate juice may help manage erectile dysfunction (International Journal of Impotence Research, doi: 10.1038/sj.ijir.3901570).

Turk and co-workers divided 28 male Wistar rats into four groups, and assigned them to drink one millilitre of distilled water (control group), 0.75 mL water plus 0.25 mL pomegranate juice (PJ), 0.50 mL water plus 0.50 mL PJ, or one mL PJ daily for seven weeks.

At the end of the experiment, the researchers report that levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), a reactive carbonyl compound and a major end product of lipid oxidation, significantly decreased as a result of PJ consumption, with the a 48.5 and 63.5 per cent decrease in the serum and sperm of the animals drinking the concentrated juice, respectively, compared to controls.

"Spermatozoa are especially susceptible to peroxidative damage because of the high concentration of polyunsaturated fatty acids which are involved in regulation of sperm maturation, [and] spermatogenesis," explained the researchers.

Levels of antioxidant enzyme activities increased as a result of PJ, report Turk and co-workers, with sperms activities of glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and catalase (CAT) increasing by 4.5, 12.5 and 52.9 per cent, respectively.

Moreover, the researchers report: "In the present study it was observed that epididymal sperm concentration and sperm motility of rats that received different doses of PJ were significantly higher than those of the control."

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