Ellagitannins
Polyphenols
Large polyphenols of pomegranate, seeded berries and walnuts. They do not cross the intestinal wall as they are.
Without the right bacteria, the ellagitannin comes out as it went in: here the food is not enough, you need the microbiota that goes with it.
Effects and benefits
Pomegranate, walnuts and raspberries hide a molecule that only your microbiota can activate. Some bacteria turn it into urolithin A, which restarts the recycling of mitochondria; as a supplement, it improved muscle endurance. It all depends on the bacteria you host.
Ellagitannins are large molecules, too large to cross the gut wall. In the colon, they release ellagic acid, which specific bacteria transform step by step into urolithins. These are what we find in blood and urine, sometimes several days after a glass of pomegranate juice (Tomás-Barberán et al., 2017).
Urolithin A stimulates mitophagy, the sorting by which cells eliminate their worn mitochondria to build new ones. In older people, a month of supplement changed the expression of mitochondrial genes in muscle (Andreux et al., 2019); four months improved muscle endurance in middle-aged and older adults (Liu et al., 2022; Singh et al., 2022).
By age: the distribution of producer and non-producer profiles changes over life (Cortés-Martín et al., 2018), and muscle mitochondria work less well over the years; that is why trials have mostly involved people over fifty.
Gordonibacter and Ellagibacter transform them into urolithin A. Not everyone can: about 40% of people produce little or none. It is the best-documented food–bacterium pairing there is.
Sources: Tomás-Barberán et al., 2017 · Andreux et al., Nat Metab, 2019 · Liu et al., JAMA Netw Open, 2022 · Singh et al., Cell Rep Med, 2022 · Cortés-Martín et al., 2018
Where to find it (15)
- Anardana (pomegranate seeds)
- Black walnuts
- Blackberry
- Camu camu
- Chestnut
- Cloudberry
- Grenoble walnut
- Guava
- Jaboticaba
- Pecan
- Pomegranate
- Pomegranate juice
- Raspberry
- Rosehip
- Strawberry