"Taking a pomegranate pill a day may help slow the progression of prostate cancer https preliminary research suggests. The study is the latest to demonstrate pomegranates promising antitumor effects says study head Michael Carducci MD professor of oncology and urology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes. In  https other researchers reported that pomegranate juice may also prevent prostate cancer https from getting worse. The new study involved  men with cancer https that had not spread beyond the prostate https and rising PSA levels https Rising levels of PSA prostatespecific antigen are a sign that prostate cancer may be getting worse. The men took either one capsule containing  gram of pomegranate extract or three pomegranate capsules daily. At the start of the study the mens PSA levels were doubling every  months. After six months of taking the capsules it took  months for their PSA levels to double. The results were similar regardless of whether the men took one capsule or three Carducci tells WebMD. However men who took three pills daily were more likely to suffer mild to moderate diarrhea https  vs.  of those who took one pill. Carducci credits antioxidants https in the pomegranate for its anticancer effect. The study was presented at the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Pomegranate for Prostate Cancer Opinions Mixed Michael Morris MD of Memorial SloanKettering Medical Center in New York City says the research has some limitations. For starters its never been proven that slowing down the PSA doubling time improves a patients prognosis he tells WebMD. Additionally it would have been useful to have a group of men who only took placebo https to determine if the extract has benefits beyond that of a biologically inert compound Morris says. But Nicholas J. Vogelzang MD chair and medical director of the developmental therapeutics committee at US Oncology in Las Vegas was excited about the data. The change in the PSA doubling time was dramatic. Thats a good result and basically confirms the findings of the juice study he tells WebMD. Improvements in PSA can have a powerful effect on mens anxiety https levels he says. Vogelzang says he recommends pomegranate extract or juice a lot typically for men with rising PSA levels. But I dont usually use it for men whose cancer https has spread beyond the prostate he says. Carducci is an unpaid consultant to POM Wonderful which makes both the pomegranate capsules and the juice used in the earlier study. These findings were presented at a medical conference. They should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the peer review process in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal."