For years, natural health circles have been abuzz with excitement about resveratrol.
Research shows it’s a potent anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory compound. It may also enhance the effectiveness of cancer drugs. In fact, while many natural substances can reduce your risk of cancer, resveratrol appears to be one of the most impressive.
Resveratrol is a phytonutrient called a stilbene that’s found in red grapes (especially the skin and seeds) as well as wine. You can also get resveratrol from peanuts, cocoa, blueberries, bilberries, cranberries, and lingonberries.
Phytonutrients are simply edible compounds produced by a plant. More specifically, resveratrol is a “polyphenol,” of which more than 500 exist in nature. When you eat food in the colors of the rainbow, you get health benefits from various polyphenols.
Researchers have extensively studied resveratrol. When you enter “resveratrol” into PubMed, you get a grand total of 14,286 results. Compelling studies published over the past few years show wide-ranging benefits of resveratrol that include:
- Neutralizing free radicals
- Protecting the brain from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and stroke
- Increasing your brain’s blood flow, which protects you from depression and brain inflammation and may boost learning, mood, and memory
- Improving fasting blood sugar and insulin levels
- Supporting your immune system by inhibiting the growth of rogue viruses
- Protecting against microbes
- Improving longevity
And of course, preventing and treating many cancers.
Suppresses the growth of many cancers
Resveratrol’s antioxidant power as well as its ability to improve blood flow, boost immune system function and fight viruses and microbes give it an edge against cancer.
For example, researchers have homed in on eight different ways that resveratrol works against cancer. Resveratrol:
- Boosts NK (natural killer) cellular activity, as proven in studies of aggressive leukemias and lymphomas.1
- Inhibits cancer progression by suppressing pro-tumor activation of TAMs2 and stopping metastasis in lung cancer research.3
- Blocks glycolysis and inhibits AMPK/mTOR signaling necessary for cancer to grow and spread.
- Promotes apoptosis, the programmed death of cancer cells.4
- Turns off inflammatory markers like the enzyme COX-2, which plays a role in cancer development. This resveratrol action was discovered more than 20 years ago by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.5
- Suppresses the bacteria H. pylori, a leading cause of gastric cancer.
- Stops parasites such as Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), a common parasite that shows affinity to the brain. The parasite has links to Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, and cancer. A January 2021 study suggests a link between the parasite and glioma, a brain cancer. So, resveratrol’s ability to control this parasite is worth noting.6
- Blocks the damaging effects of carcinogens, such as cigarette smoke.
In fact, in one of the most exciting recent studies researchers gave mice cigarette carcinogens to induce lung cancer and then found that resveratrol prevented lung cancer from developing in some of these mice.7
The research team administered resveratrol nasally to the mice in high doses. The resveratrol-treated mice showed a 45 percent decrease in tumor growth. What’s more, those that did get tumors had fewer and smaller tumors than the untreated mice did. This suggests that resveratrol could help prevent lung cancer, even in smokers.8
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that lung cancer is the world’s deadliest cancer. So, this is a profound discovery. (For the record, if you smoke, we recommend that you stop, resveratrol or not.)
Overall, there’s research confirming resveratrol’s effectiveness against many types of cancer including cancer of the:
- Breast
- Prostate
- Stomach
- Colon
- Pancreas
- Thyroid
- Ovaries and cervix
- Head and neck (squamous cell carcinoma)
- Lung
- Skin, such as melanoma—even at very low doses9
There’s also good scientific evidence that resveratrol can mitigate the side effects of cancer treatment.
Protects you during cancer treatment
Chemotherapy drugs have a long list of side effects, some of them short term and some of them long term.
Among other problems, chemotherapy can trigger early menopause, ovarian aging, and infertility in women. Research indicates that resveratrol can reduce those side effects, inhibit the cancer’s resistance to chemotherapy drugs and even enhance the drugs’ effectiveness.10 For example, resveratrol can help chemotherapy drugs reach deep into cancerous tumors that may be hard to access when the drug is used alone.
It’s important to note that resveratrol can help you fight other diseases of aging, too.
Keeps your brain strong and healthy
University of Queensland researchers found that phytonutrients such as resveratrol protect the nerves in your brain.11 Specifically, resveratrol improves blood flow within your brain. Improved blood flow leads to increased production of new brain cells. As a result, resveratrol boosts cognitive performance, learning, and memory in research.12
Protects against high blood sugar or diabetes
A 2019 study looked at 71 overweight patients with Type-2 diabetes. Each patient received either 1,000 mg/day of resveratrol or placebo for eight weeks.
Patients underwent blood tests before and after the study. Resveratrol led to significant decreases in fasting blood sugar and insulin levels in overweight, Type-2 diabetics.13
Another study showed similar results. These patients had both diabetes and coronary heart disease. Each patient received either resveratrol or placebo for four weeks.
Resveratrol reduced patients’ fasting glucose and insulin levels. It also increased insulin sensitivity compared to the placebo group.
In addition, the resveratrol group also saw improvements in cholesterol levels.14
Helps you avoid deadly fractures
Osteoporosis – loss of bone density and strength– can increase your risk of falls, bone breaks, permanent disability and even death. Resveratrol appears to help.
One study showed that postmenopausal women who took resveratrol improved their bone density as measured by a DEXA bone density scan. These women improved their T-score (used to measure bone density) which lowered their risk of a fracture over the next ten years.
This was also true for women with no obvious risk of osteoporosis.15 A little resveratrol goes a long way. The women in this study took 75 mg of resveratrol twice a day over a one-year period.
Best regards,
Lee Euler,
Publisher
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566902/ Accessed on April 24, 2021.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566902/ Accessed on April 24, 2021.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566902/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- VisMederi srl, Strada del Petriccio e Belriguardo, 35, 53100 Siena, Italy; elegianche@yahoo.it.
Infectivology and Clinical Trials Research Department, Children’s Hospital Bambino Gesù, Viale San Paolo 15, 00146 Rome, Italy - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9705326/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://www.genengnews.com/news/toxoplasma-gondii-linked-to-brain-tumor/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30250304/ Accessed on April 29, 2021
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-10-grape-constituent-cancer.html Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6566902/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cpr.12514 Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-compounds-apples-boost-brain-function.html Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775888/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31475415/ Accessed on April 24, 2021
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335073893_The_effects_of_resveratrol_on_metabolic
_status_in_patients_with_type_2_diabetes_mellitus_and_coronary_heart_disease Accessed on April 24, 2021 - https://asbmr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jbmr.4115 Accessed on April 24, 2021
