It may not make you immortal, but a ruby-red superfruit revered in ancient times as “food of the gods” could hold the key to youthful ageing.

The pomegranate contains a chemical that combats a fundamental ageing process which causes muscles to weaken, scientists have said. As in every legend involving a hidden secret to staying young, there is a catch, however.

To experience any anti-ageing benefit from the pomegranate compound you must first possess the ‘right’ sort of gut bacteria.

The microbes are needed because they convert the fruit’s raw ingredient into the molecule urolithin A, shown in laboratory experiments to maintain youthful muscles.

Significantly, old mice that were fed the magic molecule as part of their regular diet were stronger than animals given ordinary food and their running endurance increased by 45 per cent. Excited scientists have already set up a company, Amazentis, to exploit the discovery. Early clinical trials testing finely calibrated doses of the molecule in human patients are now under way in a number of European hospitals.

If you’re one of the unlucky ones, it’s possible that pomegranate juice won’t do you any good

Lead researcher Johan Auwerx, from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, said: “We believe this research is a milestone in current anti-ageing efforts... and illustrates the opportunity of rigorously tested nutritional bioactive agents that we consider to have outstanding potential for human health.”

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, focused on mitochondria – tiny rod-like “power plants” in cells that play a vital role in turning food into energy.

Over time, mitochondria become worn out and damaged. A process called ‘mitophagy’ allows the mitochondria to be recycled, clearing away those that are defective to make way for fresh replacements.

As we age, mitophagy becomes less efficient and cells end up cluttered with old, poorly functioning mitochondria. The build-up of dysfunctional mitochondria is associated with many conditions of ageing, such as Parkinson’s disease.

But the Swiss team found that – almost miraculously – urolithin A stimulated mitophagy and re-established the ability of cells to recycle mitochondria.

Early tests on a laboratory worm called Caenorhabditis elegans showed that urolithin A increased the creature’s eight to 10-day lifespan by more than 45 per cent.

Additionally, giving mice urolithin A in their food as they grew older led to “robustly increased” muscle function at 22 to 24 months of age. In human terms, a mouse aged two is around 70 years old.

Even though their muscle mass was unchanged, the mice had nine per cent greater grip strength than animals not fed the chemical, and displayed a 57 per cent greater level of spontaneous exercise.

Amazentis co-founder Patrick Aebischer, also from EPFL, said: “Mitophagy declines in cells as we age, and the reduction in mitochondrial function in the muscles of the elderly is thought to be one of the main causes of age-related muscle impairment.”

Writing in Nature Medicine, the researchers said declining muscle function in the elderly contributed to the more general condition known as “frailty”. This, in turn, was an important risk factor for “disability, hospitalisation and mortality”.

Moroever, the scientists pointed out that the amount of urolithin A produced naturally in the body, via gut microbes, varied greatly between different species and individuals.

Some people lacking the right gut bacteria may not obtain any of the molecule from their diet.

“If you’re one of the unlucky ones, it’s possible that pomegranate juice won’t do you any good,” said the researchers in a press release.

EPFL co-author Chris Rinsch, chief executive of Amazentis, said: “Precursors to urolithin A are found not only in pomegranates, but also in smaller amounts in many nuts and berries. Yet for it to be produced in our intestines, the bacteria must be able to break down what we’re eating.”

A host of other health benefits have already been linked to pomegranates with varying degrees of evidence.

The fruit is packed with antioxidants and said to reduce the risk of heart disease, fight inflammation and arthritis, improve memory, boost exercise performance and combat prostate cancer.

A two-part Phase I trial looking at the effects of different urolithin A doses on a population of healthy elderly individuals is under way in France, said Rinsch.

“One of the main goals of this clinical trial is to evaluate Amazentis’ proprietary products that deliver calibrated doses of urolithin A in order to increase the circulating levels of this pomegranate metabolite in the blood,” he said.

“This clinical study also evaluates the safety of different doses of urolithin A. Additionally, we are evaluating certain biomarkers of mitochondrial function in this study.”

He added that precisely what kind of human gut bacteria are responsible for urolithin A production is currently unknown.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.