From the ancient fruit of the pomegranate, science has drawn a compound that may offer new hope to the hundreds of thousands living in quiet suffering with a form of heart failure that medicine has long struggled to address. Researchers at King's College London have found that urolithin A, produced naturally in the body after consuming pomegranates and certain nuts and berries, improved heart function by up to 80% in laboratory models of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction — a condition where the heart pumps adequately but cannot relax and fill with blood as it should. The discovery
Pomegranate compound urolithin A shows 80% improvement in hard-to-treat heart failure
Nearly 500,000 people in the UK with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction experience breathlessness, fatigue, reduced exercise ability and poor quality of life due to limited treatment options.
A heart that cannot fill with blood efficiently, leaving patients breathless and unable to exercise
Mark
Why is this particular type of heart failure so hard to treat compared to others?
Mimi
Because the heart's pump still works—it can push blood out fine. The problem is the muscle has become stiff, like a clenched fist that won't open. The drugs that help a weakened pump don't address stiffness. You're treating a mechanical problem with tools designed for a different problem entirely.
Mark
And urolithin A addresses the stiffness directly?
Mimi
Yes. It activates a protein that helps the heart muscle relax and fill properly. It also reduces the scarring that makes the tissue rigid in the first place. In the lab, it worked remarkably well.
Mark
The 80% improvement—is that the kind of number that translates to real patients?
Mimi
That's the honest question nobody can answer yet. The tests were in animals and in engineered human tissue grown in a dish. Those are good signs, but they're not the same as a failing heart in a living person dealing with age, obesity, diabetes, all the messy factors that actually cause the disease.
Mark
So why publish now, before human trials?
Mimi
Because you've identified the mechanism—the protein, the pathway, the proof of concept. You've shown it's safe in humans already. You're essentially saying: here's a door we didn't know existed, and here's a key that opens it. That's worth sharing.
Mark
What would a clinical trial look like?
Mimi
You'd give some patients urolithin A and others a placebo, measure their heart function, their symptoms, their quality of life. You'd need months or years to see if the laboratory benefits hold up in real bodies.
Mark
And if it works?
Mimi
Then nearly half a million people in the UK alone might have a treatment option where they had almost none. That's the stakes.
Der Puls
- Nearly half a million people in the UK live with a form of heart failure that leaves the heart's pump intact but its walls too stiff to fill properly — and for most of them, effective treatment has never existed.
- The condition resists conventional heart failure drugs because its roots run through aging, obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure simultaneously, making it one of cardiovascular medicine's most stubborn puzzles.
- King's College London researchers found that urolithin A activates a key protein governing heart muscle relaxation, cutting fibrosis and abnormal cell growth in animal models by up to 80% compared to untreated controls.
- When the team tested the compound on engineered human heart tissue grown from stem cells, it showed meaningful improvements in relaxation — a critical signal that the laboratory results may not be confined to animals.
- Urolithin A already carries a reassuring human safety record from prior studies, but researchers and the British Heart Foundation are clear: clinical trials in real patients must come before this becomes a treatment.
From the ancient fruit of the pomegranate, science has drawn a compound that may offer new hope to the hundreds of thousands living in quiet suffering with a form of heart failure that medicine has long struggled to address. Researchers at King's College London have found that urolithin A, produced naturally in the body after consuming pomegranates and certain nuts and berries, improved heart function by up to 80% in laboratory models of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction — a condition where the heart pumps adequately but cannot relax and fill with blood as it should. The discovery does not yet constitute a cure, but it opens a door in a corridor that has remained largely closed, reminding us that some of medicine's most promising answers may be quietly waiting in the oldest foods we know.
Researchers at King's College London have identified a naturally occurring compound — urolithin A, produced in the body after eating pomegranates, walnuts, and certain berries — that improved heart function by up to 80% in laboratory models of one of cardiology's most treatment-resistant conditions.
The disease in question is heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, which affects roughly half a million people in the UK and accounts for about half of all heart failure cases. Unlike the more familiar form, where the heart loses pumping strength, this variant leaves the pump intact but makes the muscle too stiff to relax and fill with blood properly between beats. Patients are left breathless, fatigued, and unable to exercise without distress — and because the heart's basic pumping function appears normal, the drugs that help other heart failure patients largely fail them.
The King's College team found that urolithin A activates a protein called PKGlα, which governs how heart muscle relaxes and how blood vessels function. In animal models, the compound reduced fibrosis, prevented abnormal enlargement of heart muscle cells, and dramatically improved the heart's ability to relax. To test whether these results might carry over to humans, the researchers also exposed engineered heart tissue grown from human stem cells to the compound — and observed significant improvements in relaxation there too.
Dr. Joseph Burgoyne, the study's senior author, was careful to note that eating pomegranates is not a treatment, and the evidence does not yet support that conclusion. But he described the findings as opening a new therapeutic pathway for a disease that has long resisted medicine's best efforts. The British Heart Foundation, which funded the work, echoed that caution: promising as the results are, they have only been demonstrated in animals and laboratory tissue. Clinical trials in actual patients remain the necessary next step before urolithin A can be considered a genuine treatment. The study is set to be published in Science Advances.
Researchers at King's College London have identified a compound that emerges naturally in the body after eating pomegranates, walnuts, and certain berries—and in laboratory tests, it improved heart function by up to 80% in a particularly stubborn form of heart disease.
The compound is called urolithin A. The disease it targets is heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, a condition that affects roughly half a million people in the UK and accounts for about half of all heart failure cases. Unlike the more familiar form of heart failure, where the heart loses its pumping strength, this variant leaves the pump itself intact but makes the heart muscle stiff and unable to relax properly between beats. The result is a heart that cannot fill with blood efficiently, leaving patients breathless, fatigued, and unable to exercise without distress.
What makes this condition so difficult to treat is its complexity. It develops from multiple causes—aging, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity—and because the heart's basic pumping function remains normal, the medications that work for other types of heart failure often fail here. Doctors have largely resorted to managing the underlying conditions and recommending lifestyle changes like weight loss and blood sugar control. For nearly half a million people in the UK alone, the options are thin.
The King's College team discovered that urolithin A works by activating a protein called PKGlα, which plays a crucial role in how blood vessels function and how heart muscle relaxes. In animal models, the compound increased the heart tissue's ability to relax, reduced harmful scarring known as fibrosis, and prevented the abnormal enlargement of heart muscle cells that typically occurs in this disease. The improvements were substantial—up to 80% better than untreated controls.
To test whether these findings might translate to humans, the researchers grew engineered heart tissue from human stem cells in the laboratory, creating a model that closely mimics real human heart muscle. When they exposed this tissue to urolithin A, it showed significant improvements in relaxation, suggesting the compound's benefits might work in actual patients.
One advantage urolithin A holds over many experimental drugs is that it has already been studied in humans and shown a favorable safety profile. Dr. Joseph Burgoyne, the study's senior author, noted that the findings open a new therapeutic pathway for a disease that remains one of the most challenging in cardiovascular medicine. He cautioned, however, that eating pomegranates is not a treatment—the evidence does not yet support that claim. But he suggested that dietary approaches enhancing urolithin A production might eventually help alleviate the condition.
The British Heart Foundation, which funded the research, emphasized that while the results are promising, they have only been demonstrated in animals and engineered tissue. Clinical trials involving actual patients are necessary before anyone can know whether urolithin A will deliver the same benefits in the human body. The study will be published in Science Advances.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
This type of heart failure remains one of the most challenging forms of heart disease to treat. Our findings identify a completely new therapeutic target and show that urolithin A can activate this pathway to improve heart relaxation and reduce disease severity.— Dr. Joseph Burgoyne, King's College London
While there isn't enough evidence to suggest that people should eat pomegranates to treat heart failure, these findings raise the possibility that dietary approaches that enhance urolithin A production may help alleviate this condition.— Dr. Joseph Burgoyne
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