## 4 Discussion  
Some authors preserve the idea that functional foods should be classified only by their preventive character instead of its medicinal potential [21; 22]. Pomegranate, considered a functional fruit for its antioxidant capacity, also demonstrates a medicinal role against many non-communicable diseases like diabetes [23] and cancer [24]. The assessment of PPE antioxidant activity assayed by DPPH assay, where the DPPH odd electron of nitrogen atom is reduced by receiving a hydrogen atom from the tested antioxidants, demonstrated that PPE has an effective antioxidant activity as reflected by the inhibition of the free radical DPPH (80.4 \(\pm\) 0.90). Pomegranate is a complex fruit, in which each component presents a different nutritional composition, all of them with promising therapeutic results in different types of cancer. [PERSON] and colleagues evaluated the impact of pomegranate seed extract in different tumor cell lines: MCF-7 (breast carcinoma), PC3 (prostate adenocarcinoma); SKOV3 (ovarian carcinoma) and A549 (lung carcinoma). The results reveal that low concentration of seed extract (starting at 5 \(\mu\)g/mL) induce strong anti-proliferative effects in all cancer cell lines, with a growth inhibition between 78.46% (for A549 cell line) and 85.2% (for SKOV3 cell line) [25]. There have been other studies conducted using pomegranate juice with HT-29 cells (colon cancer cell line) which resulted in a phosphorylation decrease in the NF-kB/p65 subunit and in a 79% suppression of TNF\(\alpha\)-induced (COX)-2 protein expressions [26]. These findings imply that the consumption of pomegranate juice, which leads to a decrease in inflammatory markers, may have a significant impact on colon cancer. Pomegranate fruit extract was also evaluated in skin cancer progression. SKU-1064 (skin fibroblasts) cell line was exposed to ultraviolet induced damage when treated with pomegranate extract it was observed that at high concentrations ranging from 500 to 10,000 mg/L, pomegranate fruit exhibited protective effects by reducing NF-kB expression, decreasing caspase-3, and increasing DNA repair in G0/G1 [27]. Focusing on peel extracts, [PERSON] and colleagues demonstrated that peel extract have both antioxidant and antimutagenic effects [28]. Another study by [PERSON] and [PERSON] corroborated the antitumor effect of peel extract in Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells (EACC) [29]. A recent academic work assembled information from studies performed in breast cancer regarding extracts of the different pomegranate components [16]. In cell-based studies, results were concomitant and revealed that pomegranate acts as: anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, anti-metastatic and antioxidant--all that corroborated by our present findings [16]. Moreover, pomegranate also reveals metabolic functions like anti-estrogenic activity, anti-aromatase, anti-angiogenic, and enhancement of tamoxifen effect [16]. Our cell-based results were concordant with previous studies since a selective decrease was observed in cell viability, proliferation, and migration of tumor cells at higher concentrations of PPE [30; 31; 32], with no cytotoxicity for epithelial cells. To better understand the mechanism behind the anti-tumoral capacity of PPE, we further analyzed the antioxidant enzymatic activity. It is well established that ROS (including singlet oxygen radical, superoxide radical, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radical), not only play an important role in carcinogenesis due to DNA damages but are also considered mediators of central cellular mechanisms like proliferation and apoptosis [33]. Recent studies support that the redox state in tumor cells is so distinctive that modulation of ROS should be considered in the therapeutical strategy [34]. To maintain redox homeostasis, healthy cells take advantage of a robust antioxidant defense system from which we focused in the enzymatic system which includes the catalase, SOD, and glutathione complex system to detox ROS into harmless compounds like water or molecular oxygen.