RESVERATROL TESTS

Sipping And Savoring Red Wine Health Benefits
While drinking alcohol to excess leads to health problems in multiple organ systems, you’ve probably also heard of red wine health benefits when drunk in moderation.
Long standing research backs up the benefits, but until now researchers couldn’t explain precisely how this might work.
“Reports on the benefits of red wine are almost two centuries old,” points out Lindsay Brown, associate professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland.
“The media developed the more recent story of the French paradox in the early 1990s. However, studies on the actions of resveratrol, one of the active non-alcoholic ingredients, were uncommon until research around 1997 showed prevention of cancers. This led to a dramatic interest in this compound.”
Not surprisingly, red wine brings together a complicated mix of antioxidants and other compounds, one of which is a polyphenol known as resveratrol that is showing itself to have some amazing disease prevention abilities.
The health benefits of this substance are certainly impressive, everything from preventing cancer to protecting the brain and heart from damage and age-related diseases, reversing diabetes, reducing “bad” cholesterol, preventing blood clots, obesity and more.
But by far the most fascinating tidbit is the way the body gets the beneficial compounds.
It appears that absorption of resveratrol through the mucous membranes in the mouth results in around 100 times the blood levels of the compound than a drinker would get via the digestive system and liver.
These body systems inactivate this helpful substance, so those gulped down glasses don’t deliver the resveratrol to the bloodstream.
Sips that are slow and savoring work far better allowing the absorption of this oh-so-beneficial compound.
Though it sounds complex and convoluted, experts have found that high doses of resveratrol increase a process called apoptosis (programmed cell death); while lower doses are thought to improve cardiac health by preventing cell damage.
A likely explanation for this level dependent effect is that smaller concentrations of the compound activate cell survival mechanisms, while high concentrations turn on built in death signals in those same cells.
The compound might also help maintain health by removing very reactive oxidants in the body while aiding the supply of blood to cells.
“The simplest explanation is that resveratrol turns on the cell’s own survival pathways, preventing damage to individual cells,” explains study author Brown. “Further mechanisms help, including removing very reactive oxidants in the body and improving blood supply to cells.”

Why Sipping And Savoring Red Wine Is Good For You

If red wine isn’t your thing, experts suggest that by eating a couple of servings of blueberries (or red grapes, purple grape juice, peanuts or some berries) a day from now on you may well get the same benefit.

You might also have heard about resveratrol in the news or on recent 60 Minutes reports, but be wary of supplement claims that use footage from the report, or cite an endorsement of Oprah Winfrey’s medical expert, Mehmel Oz, M.D. Dr. Oz hasn’t endorsed any product.

The work on resveratrol and red wine health benefits is set to appear in the September 2009 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Dietmar Hopp Foundation.

To your good health,