A recent study has demonstrated the analgesic potency of punicalagin towards neuropathic pain and inflammatory pain in the spinal cord.
Neuropathic pain is produced by damage to or diseases of the sensory nervous system and normally is resistant to conventional treatments that persist for months or even years.
Punicalagin, a natural polyphenolic compound of pomegranate, has been widely studied as a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. However little is known about the effect of this compound on pain transmission in the central nervous system.
In this work, Yasunori Haranishi and co-workers at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Japan have studied the suppressive effect of punicalagin on spinal pain. They have tested the analgesic effect of punicalagin in rats subjected to injury of the sciatic nerve. Punicalagin attenuated pain to the same degree as gabapentin, a drug used to relieve pain for some diseases, but without serious side effects. They have demonstrated for the first time that punicalagin markedly attenuates neuropathic pain and persistent inflammatory pain in the spinal cord with minimal effect on locomotor activity. Therefore, punicalagin shows therapeutic potential for the treatment of intractable pain in the spinal cord, although further studies are needed before punicalagin can be applied clinically.
Article: Analgesic potency of intrathecally administered punicalagin in rat neuropathic and inflammatory pain models. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11418-021-01576-0