A compound the body produces after eating pomegranates, walnuts and certain berries significantly improved heart function in animal and lab models of a common but hard-to-treat form of heart failure, according to a study published Monday by researchers at King's College London. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, focus on urolithin A, a molecule generated by gut bacteria that improved heart function by as much as 80% in treated animal models compared with untreated controls.
The research targeted heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, a form of the disease in which the heart keeps its pumping strength but grows stiff and struggles to relax and refill with blood between beats. The condition accounts for roughly half of all heart failure cases and affects an estimated half a million people in the United Kingdom alone, with few effective treatments currently available. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation.
How the Compound Works
In the study, urolithin A acted on a single site on a protein called PKGlα, helping failing hearts relax more fully, reducing scarring of heart tissue and limiting the abnormal enlargement that accompanies the disease. Researchers observed the same effect in laboratory-grown human heart tissue engineered from stem cells, in addition to the animal models, suggesting the mechanism may hold up in human biology.
Senior author Dr. Joseph Burgoyne was careful to temper expectations about what the findings mean for people's diets, noting that urolithin A production varies widely from person to person depending on the makeup of their gut microbiome, so eating pomegranates or walnuts does not guarantee a therapeutic dose.
While there isn't enough evidence to suggest that people should eat pomegranates to treat heart failure, this discovery paves the way for future studies to determine whether dietary approaches that boost the levels of natural compounds, such as urolithin A, could help alleviate this condition.
Dr. Joseph Burgoyne, King's College London
Colleague Professor James Leiper offered a similar caution, stressing that "no single food can prevent or treat heart disease on its own." The research team said the next step is testing whether urolithin A, potentially delivered as a standardized supplement rather than through diet alone, produces the same benefits in human clinical trials — a process expected to take years before any treatment could reach patients. In the meantime, cardiologists not involved in the study say the findings add to a growing body of research into gut-derived compounds as a potential avenue for treating HFpEF, a category of heart disease that has proven notably resistant to existing drugs.
