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Pomegranate supplement increases IGF-1 levels
If people over 55 take two capsules of pomegranate extract every day, their IGF-1 levels increase by 16 percent. This may mean they develop or maintain muscle mass more easily.
Study
Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University divided 72 healthy subjects aged 55-70 into two groups. For 12 weeks, the researchers gave one group a placebo daily, and the other group two capsules containing pomegranate extract daily.
Each capsule contained 370 milligrams of extract. In total, the subjects in this group consumed 740 milligrams of extract per day.
The extract consisted of 36 percent punicalagins and 1.3 percent ellagic acid. The extract's manufacturer, the Spanish company Euromed SA, sponsored the study.
Results
After 12 weeks, the IGF-1 concentration in the blood of the subjects in the experimental group had increased by almost 16 percent.
Click on the table below for a larger version.
When supplementation began, measured IGF-1 levels were at the lower end of the normal range. After the 16 percent increase in levels, they fell closer to the middle of the normal range. This is evident from the table below.
It's possible that the increased IGF levels make it a little easier for the test subjects to build and maintain muscle mass. The British didn't study whether this is actually the case, but it's not impossible. In animal studies, pomegranate increases testosterone levels, while in human studies, pomegranate juice lowers cortisol levels. Furthermore, urolithins may also have a direct anabolic effect.
The researchers also investigated whether pomegranate supplementation lengthened telomeres. This did not happen.
Pomegranate juice?
In 2019, Turkish researchers published an analysis of six commercially available pomegranate juices in the Hacettepe Journal of Biology and Chemistry. Of the three products with the highest concentration of punicalagins, you would have to drink about a liter daily to ingest the same amount of punicalagins as the test subjects in the British study. [Hacettepe J Biol Chem. 2019;47(3):267-75.] Ouch.
Hip hip hooray for the supplement industry.
Source:
Nutrients. 2025;17:974.
More:
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12 percent more strength, 15 percent more endurance due to urolithin A | Human data 16.03.2024
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