Food

Pomegranate plays with your eating habits

ANI
January 29, 2013

First Published: 14:18 IST(29/1/2013)
Last Updated: 14:47 IST(29/1/2013)

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Stay young with pomegranates

Pomegranate is hailed as a superfood due to its rich disease-preventing antioxidants, but now it appears to have an extra benefit - cutting hunger pangs.

Scientists claimed that regular consumption of pomegranate extract may reduce feelings of hunger, while increasing the sensation of

being full, the Daily Mail reported.

Volunteers who took a pomegranate supplement daily for three weeks reported feeling significantly less hungry during the experiment than those who had a placebo instead.

When given a plate of food as part of the trial, those who had been taking the extract ate an average of 22 percent less than those in the control group, but reported greater enjoyment of the food.

A total of 29 volunteers took part in the study carried out by Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Half the group took a pomegranate extract, containing the skin, pith and seeds of the fruit, every day for three weeks and the rest took a placebo tablet.

After three weeks, each volunteer drank a glass of pomegranate juice before sitting down to a meal of pasta with tomato sauce.

Before eating and at 15-minute intervals for up to two hours afterwards, the participants recorded their feelings of hunger, desire to eat, fullness and satisfaction in a questionnaire widely used in scientific studies to measure feelings and attitudes.

The pomegranate extract group felt less hungry (by an average of 12 percent), had less desire to eat (21 percent), felt fuller (16 percent) and more satisfied (15 percent).

They also ate an average of 447 grammes of the pasta meal compared with 574 grammes for the control group, or 22 percent less, and rated their food as more tasty than the other group.