Drink up! Dialysis patients get pomegranate juice

[okarol]

Drink up! Dialysis patients get pomegranate juice

By Jack Khoury
Wed., July 23, 2008

Dialysis patients in the Western Galilee Hospital-Nahariya will soon receive pomegranate juice with their meals, as part of an experiment to check the juice's contribution to their health.

The hospital's hemodialysis unit, which treats 180 patients, decided to embark on the year-long experiment after preliminary studies indicated that food additives such as pomegranate juice have a beneficial effect.

Pomegranate juice can improve health and reduce infections, heart disease and blood vessel problems, which are common among dialysis patients, said hemodialysis unit director Professor Batya Kristal.

The experiment is working on the assumption that medical and dietetic treatments complement each other, she said.

The dialysis unit will be the first in Israel to give its patients pomegranate juice throughout their treatment, for a one-year study. If the study finds that the juice significantly boosts patients' health, it will become a routine part of nationwide treatment, doctors said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004144.html

[jbeany]

Umm, what's the potassium level in that stuff?

[Zach]

Umm, what's the potassium level in that stuff?

Pomegranate juice is pretty high.

Just one raw pomegranate, 3-3/4 inch in diameter (154 grams), has 399 mg of potassium.  It is low in phosphorus, only 12 mg.
To juice it, one would need several pomegranates.

Maybe it's highly diluted.

[flip]

probably wouldn't mix good with vodka

[Zach]

probably wouldn't mix good with vodka

It's already out there:
http://www.foodreference.com/html/pearl-persephone.html
http://cocktails.about.com/b/2006/11/25/van-gogh-pomegranate-vodka.htm

 

[Romona]

Everything goes with vodka. 

[Rerun]

With the fluid restriction they may only get a fourth of a cup.

Maybe they are trying to thin out the dialysis population by this study.  BREAKING NEWS...... Pomegranate study fails!

[twirl]

my clinic does not like getting us ice or water or coffee
we have 6 ounces of either ---- one choice and one cup and if you spill it ---- too bad
they would not get us juice
oh no, we can not disturb their "down time" as they call it
we had an observer from Davita there the other day
I did not know it - we always have people in there training and we do not know who they are
I asked what was going on everything is different today
people were being nicer
that lady was by me when I asked
the tech answered "we are always nice"
I told her no you are not

[Zach]

Just the facts:
http://www.pomwonderful.com/100_percent_juice.html

[jbeany]

Yup, sounds like a great plan - give the dialysis patients a high dose of potassium, some extra fluid, and for the diabetics, a nice sugar rush as well.  40 carbohydrates is almost a whole meals worth of carbs.

At one point, my center came up with the bright idea of giving everyone with a low albumin a glass of ensure, and insisting we drink it all.  Then they would pass it out during the last 15 minutes of dialysis, so there was no good way to get the fluid back off, unless you set your dry weight to pull too much in the first place.  Personally, I think the stuff is nasty - corn syrup with milk flavoring, yuck.  The dietitian, of course, was ticked when most of the patients refused to cooperate!

[flip]

I'll stick with my Nepro and kahlua after dialysis.

[twirl]

and Flip you will be a lot happier

[flip]

and have less potassium

[monrein]

I'm thinking that fresh pomegranate juice would be significantly lower in sugar than Pom (brand name).  The study with the juice is happening in Israel so we can't assume that they'll be using Pom or any other North American brand.  Of course potassium is always an issue but I'd be happy to drink small amounts of pomegranate juice if it had all those health benefits.  I used to drink fresh squeezed pomegranate juice in India and it tasted nothing like Pom.

[RichardMEL]

I've always been told by the staff it is OK to have chocolate or something high potassium in the first hour or so of dialysis since the machine will leach it all out, so maybe they get their drink at the start of the session, and they can just add the fluid to the UF target.....