European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

AN ANTIOXIDATIVE EFFECT OF PUNICA GRANATUM (POMEGRANATE) ON BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS IN PATIENTS WITH MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION: A DOUBLE BLIND PLACEBO CONTROLLED TRIAL.

Rahul Goyal*, Dr. S. Nagtilak, Dr. Vijay Thawani, Dr. Monika Pathania, Dr. Shavetika Jindal

ABSTRACT

Myocardial Infarction (MI) is one of the leading diseases in the world wide. The pathogenesis of MI is Coronary Artery Disease and Oxidative stress. Lots of medicines are being prescribed to cure MI and to keep Coronary artery profile healthy, but these medicines are not safe and have some side effects. WHO recommends to use alternative medicine to cure MI because herbal products are natural and don‟t have such side effects. One of such herb is pomegranate; usually consumed as fruit. As per Ayurvedic literature, Pomegranate seeds may cure MI and pulps contain lots of Antioxidants. This prompted us to find out; whether the presence strong antioxidants in pomegranate have any prognostic effects in patients with MI? So we prepared a whole Fruit extract of Pomegranate (PEWF) to investigate its effect in patients with MI. 100 patients of either gender with MI were included in this study. Demographic information, Clinical and Biochemical investigations related to Oxidative stress and Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) were done in 4 ml fasting venous blood. All participants were assigned in two groups (50 each). One group were under “Add On” therapy of Active Drug which includes Pomegranate extract of whole fruit (PEWF) (300 mg twice daily for One Month), matching Placebo of same colour, shape and size was used as comparator agent for second group. The Drug was issued to the Patients initially for 15 days after which they were recalled for clinical evaluation, compliance monitoring, adverse effect monitoring if any; and drug refill for next 15 days. At the end of the month, the base line investigations were repeated for all participants. Results were analysed by using, Z test and chi square indicates that significant difference has been obtained in post drug effect. Coefficient of Variations shows that when mean of active and placebo were compared with each other; patients who were under “add-on” therapy of PEWF for one month, shows highly significant. This indicates the prognostic effect of PEWF in MI patients.

Keywords: Pomegranate, Antioxidants, MI, Serum Homocystein, hs-CRP