 CKD patients will be recruited under 2 phases: CKD patients not receiving dialysis treatment pre-dialysis patients will be recruited in the first phase. This will include patients with CKD stage 3-5 that are not yet on dialysis. In the second phase, only CKD patients on dialysis treatment will be recruited. To address these questions, CKD patients will be randomized to the following groups for 12 months: 1 no POM supplementationcontrol CON, and 2 oral supplementation with purified pomegranate extract POM. Patients in the POM group will ingest a 1000 milligram capsule of POM extract, 7 days per week. Patients in the CON group will receive a placebo capsule using the same protocol. 