The latest word on the street (well… from the lab really) is that breast cancer may well be prevented by eating pomegranates.

This luscious fruit of forbidden desire contains ellagitannins which have the same powerful effect as a drug used to treat breast cancer in post-menopausal women.

Pomegranates are already popular for their ability to decrease the risk of heart disease and prostate cancer. They are brimming with vitamins A, C, E and rich in iron, folic acid and fibre. It also has excellent antioxidant properties (around three times more antioxidants gram per gram than does red wine or green tea) and it tastes great.

Professor Gary Stoner advised that people “might consider consuming more pomegranates to protect against cancer development in the breast and perhaps in other tissues and organs.”

If you know you are at risk of heart disease or cancer it may well be worth making pomegranate your daily breakfast drink, and the concentrated juice drizzles deliciously over muesli or humous.

Watch this space for the results of trials into pomegranate’s effect on the flu virus later this year.