Washington: If you wants to be healthy and free from kidney and heart disease start drinking the pomegranate juice daily. Recent research has shown that, Pomegranate juice, which is rich in antioxidants, offers a wide variety ofhealth benefits to kidney disease patients including managing blood pressure and lowering cholesterol, a new study has claimed. Lilach Shema and her colleagues from the Western Galilee Medical Center inIsrael investigated the long-term effects of drinking pomegranate juice on heart disease risk factors like high cholesterol and blood pressure in kidney disease patients They randomised 101 dialysis patients to receive about three-and-a-half ounces of pomegranate juice or placebo, three times a week. After one year, the number of blood pressure drugs patients took decreased in 22 percent of patients drinking pomegranate juice compared to 7.7 percent in the placebo group, while an increase was documented in 12.2 percent of patients drinking pomegranate juice compared to 34.6 percent in the placebogroup. They also found that patients who drank pomegranate juice had healthierblood pressure and cholesterol levels and less plaque build-up in their arteries.Source: The Ultimate Update