Comprehensive Library Of Resveratrol News

IS RESVERATROL A MIRACLE MOLECULE?

Would you know a miracle if you saw one?

At the time of the writing of this report, of the 12,383 published science journal reports involving red wine molecule resveratrol (rez-vair-a-trol) listed at the National Library of Medicine, only one report used the word “miraculous” to describe its health properties.

What unequivocal evidence can be provided to classify this red wine molecule as a miracle?

Miracle No. 1: Cancer Destroyer

Name a drug that blocks cancer at all three stages of develop (initiation, growth and spread/metastasis).  There isn’t an anti-cancer drug that does this.  Over two decades ago a researcher was commissioned by the American Cancer Society to study natural molecules for their ability to deter cancer.  The conclusion of that study was to stop scientific investigations of other molecules.  Resveratrol demonstrably halts all three stages of cancer progression.  Despite its calling card as a the most astounding anti-cancer molecule ever discovered, there are no reports of resveratrol being used in clinical oncology today.

Still in these modern times treatment of cancer of the blood (leukemia) results in poor survival and high treatment related mortality.  Resveratrol is posed as a candidate molecule to cure leukemia.  Resveratrol has been shown to blunt the toxic side effects of cancer drugs.  Resveratrol enhances radiation therapy and allows lower/less toxic doses of radiation to be employed in tumor treatment.

Chemotherapy often kills cancer patients before cancer does.  Unlike chemotherapy resveratrol selectively kills cancer cells and doesn’t harm healthy cells.  Anti-cancer drugs gain FDA approval when they reduce the size solid tumors by 50%.  But at this point drug resistance sets in and dooms the patient.  Resveratrol reverses tumor drug resistance.

New blood vessels form to feed nutrients to rapidly growing solid tumors.  Resveratrol turns off this growth switch in a non-toxic manner.  Tumors starve in place.  By any definition – a miracle!

Miracle No. 2: Miraculous Metabolism

AMPK is an energy-sensing molecule specifically activated in the liver.  AMPK promotes calorie burning (catabolism) over energy storage (anabolism).  The anti-diabetic drug metformin (Glucophage) is utilized to raise AMPK levels and is the most commonly prescribed drug for metabolic problems like diabesity.  Over 75 million prescriptions for metformin are written annually.  Metformin also attempts to reduce insulin resistance (inability of insulin to enter cells and produce energy).  Resveratrol “completely substitutes for insulin,” reduces insulin resistance   and activates AMPK 50-200 better than metformin, but largely goes unused in clinical practice.

Miracle No. 3: Recovery of memory after traumatic brain damage

Mechanical “crush” and “impact” brain injuries causes by auto accidents, violence, gunshots, combat injuries or even strokes (impaired blood circulation to the brain or brain hemorrhage) often result in permanent impairment.  Remarkably, resveratrol has been demonstrated in the animal lab to “recover lost memory.”

Miracle No. 4: Heart Attacks Without Damage Or Death

There is a miracle in red wine.  It’s called resveratrol.  Unintuitively wine drinkers live longer than tee-totalers.  Resveratrol works better to maintain or restore heart health than a half-dozen heart drugs combined.  Here’s why:

Resveratrol puts up an antioxidant defense before heart attacks occur.  This biological phenomenon is called cardiac preconditioning.  Upon consumption resveratrol actually disturbs tissues in the body and ignites mild biological stress which defensively produces internal enzymatic antioxidants (glutathione, catalase, superoxide dismutase).  Living cells in the body, particularly in the brain and heart, two organs whose cells do not renew themselves and must last a lifetime, are protected in this manner from strokes or heart attacks should they occur.  This is considered the best way to prevent damage to the heart.

Damage to heart muscle doesn’t occur when arteries are blocked and heart muscle cells are deprived of oxygen (called ischemia) but when circulation is restored (called reperfusion injury) and oxygen produces unstable oxygen (missing an electron) that can damage heart muscle. Resveratrol ameliorates reperfusion injury.

Human studies for heart attack are very difficult to perform ethically as vulnerable high-risk patients taking an inactive placebo pill would be left to suffer damage.  So, the best that cardiac researchers can do is test various molecules in the animal lab.  In experimental heart attack in the animal lab, resveratrol has been demonstrated to reduce reperfusion damage to the heart at relatively low doses.  (Note: only one commercial brand of resveratrol pill has undergone testing for heart protection and worked better than plain resveratrol.  Inexplicably, resveratrol is miraculously regenerative even after a heart attack occurs.

Resveratrol also inhibits blood platelets from clumping and therefore is a good blood thinner, and works like nitroglycerin to dilate (widen) blood vessels, thus averting need for other drugs that are commonly prescribed by cardiologists.

Miraculously, when coronary arteries are blocked in the heart resveratrol stimulates collateral circulation around these blockages to avert angina chest pain and cardiac death.  This has been called “do-it-yourself bypass.”  Over 500,000 coronary artery bypass surgeries are performed annually in the U.S. to overcome obstructions and narrowing in coronary arteries.  An artery or vein graft from another part of the body creates a surgical detour around obstructed coronary arteries.  Resveratrol miraculously increases capillary branches that create collateral circulation.

More remarkably, resveratrol inhibits sight-threatening new blood vessels (anti-angiogenesis) that invade the back of the eyes (retina) while simultaneously promoting new blood vessels (angiogenesis) that navigate around blockages in coronary arteries of the heart.

Miracle No. 5: Restoring Sight To The Near-Blind

Of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight), the most treasured is eyesight.  The fear of going blind may be what Americans fear most among all health-related fears, even cancer.  Severe visual impairment strikes 25% of adults over age 75.

A commercially available resveratrol pill was put to the test among the oldest old.  These are individuals who cannot drive an automobile, read a book or manage their checkbook, who can’t recognize people’s faces due to loss of central vision.  It is among this group of senior adults that mental depression is common.  They become a burden on their loved ones.  Aged patients with macular degeneration that failed to respond to medical treatment by direct injection into the eyes were given a resveratrol pill.  For these patients’ treatment options were exhausted.  They had no hope beyond magnifiers to perform daily visual tasks.

How did resveratrol fare in these otherwise hopeless patients?

• One 88-year old patient who had refused medication by needle injections into her eyes and was unable to read or identify faces reports she began seeing a hole open up in her better eye, allowing her to see faces within 3 days.  Chronic migraines and low blood pressure subsided also.  Vision in both eyes vastly improved.
• An 86-year old was able to read again within 3 weeks and could see 7 lines of smaller letters on the vision chart within 6 weeks.
• A 75-year old experienced improved vision within 5 days and passed his driver’s license test after taking just 7 capsules.

These astonishing reports of this strikingly rapid visual improvement are only preceded by accounts of miracles in the Bible.

It has been over a decade since the first remarkable case of visual improvement among an 80-year old man was reported, which included improvement in night vision and mental functioning.  Yet there is no groundswell of demand for resveratrol from the public.

Currently there is no curative treatment or preventive measure for macular degeneration.  Loss of ability to adapt from light to dark environments is predictive for future vision loss due to macular degeneration.  Prolonged time (more than six minutes) it takes for visual chemicals to be replenished after bleaching from exposure to intense bright light is predictive for macular degeneration 4 years before visual acuity loss is reported.

In 14 or 16 eyes tested, a resveratrol-based nutraceutical reversed the time it took to adapt to dark-light conditions.  Once vision loss due to macular degeneration is detected it is generally believed it is too late to ever regain full visual function again.

In other words, this is an irreversible and incurable disease.  Yet this data suggests it can be reversed and even prevented altogether.

While only a small number of eyes were tested the effect was statistically so demonstrable there is only ~1% probability the results obtained from this intervention were obtained by chance (p value 0.01).  Eye doctors should be in a rush to explore this alternative and prove it beyond a doubt.  But they are remiss in moving forward even though there is no risk for their patients.  Sadly, resveratrol rescue therapy is not commonly practiced in ophthalmology.  Thousands of patients who have failed conventional treatment may be needlessly going blind.

Miracle No. 6: Stem celling

Much is heard of stem cell therapy – injection of embryonic cells that have not developed into brain, muscle, nerve, skin, bone cells yet.  They await programming by genes to differentiate into specialized cells.  Stem cells are ideal to therapeutically repair damaged tissues.  Attempts to implant stem cells into damaged tissues have been fraught with failure.

But there is an endogenous population of stem cells that are capable of self-renewal throughout life that await programming in our own bodies.  Resveratrol has the potential to create an internal environment where endogenous stem cells can survive. Resveratrol has been demonstrated to activate internal stem cells in animal hearts, thus facilitating repair of scarred tissue in heart muscle.  Endogenous stem cell regeneration of otherwise non-renewable cells in the human retina via resveratrol therapy has been directly observed in human eyes.

Head-to-head comparison with another wonder drug

Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs have been called “wonder drugs.”  They have been described “as effective in the treatment of cardiovascular disease as penicillin is in the treatment of infectious disease.”

Recently a resveratrol within a matrix of other natural molecules was compared to a statin drug in a middle-aged patient with massive sight threatening cholesterol deposits at the back of his eyes.  Over a period of 5 years a statin drug only exhibited modest ability to reduce cholesterol deposits (drusen) while the resveratrol matrix virtually abolished the cholesterol deposits and vastly improved vision.  Another miraculous reversal.

The inclusion of resveratrol within a complex of other natural molecules, similar to those provided in wine, produces a more demonstrable beneficial effect, improving arterial dilatation better than plain resveratrol.

Miracles in review

In just a few paragraphs I have presented evidence of the modern miracle of resveratrol.  These miracles are not limited to the above maladies.  There have been anecdotal reports of cessation of brain seizures, dramatic improvement in movement disorders (Parkinson’s), vanishment of color blindness, cataracts, and mental depression.

Resveratrol unchained

Do I need to proceed any further for you to be convinced resveratrol is a modern miracle?  The otherwise helpless blind seeing again.  Mortal heart attacks prevented.  Lost memory recovered after traumatic brain injury.  Serious consequences of diabetes averted.  Cancer vanquished.  Endogenous stem cell therapy.  Moreover, the possibility of far less medication and healthcare costs with patients restored to independent living is now possible even amongst the oldest old.

After reading this report, is there any reason you wouldn’t take a resveratrol pill?

Resveratrol:

Modern medicine demands long-term, placebo-controlled studies that it refuses to conduct.  But in head-to-head trials with existing drugs, resveratrol excels, which is a higher bar to jump over than placebos.

A common criticism is that resveratrol works by placebo effect.  But placebo effect is a myth created by modern medicine to dismiss natural therapies like resveratrol.

From a historical context, penicillin, insulin, aspirin, digoxin, nitroglycerin, vaccines, metformin, codeine and thyroid hormone came into common use without controlled studies.  Why not resveratrol?

Because of resveratrol’s high safety profile (no serious side effects/deaths, hospitalizations/ American Association of Poison Control Centers Annual Reports) reported in over 10 years of use, this suggests only dosage and efficacy are remaining matters of concern.  But resveratrol should not be presumed to be safe off hand.

More than a decade has past and millions of bottles of resveratrol pills have been sold without a doctor’s prescription.  Not one death or serious side effect requiring hospitalization has been reported due to resveratrol over that time.

How does resveratrol qualify as a miracle?

It was late-night talk show host Roy Firestone who once interviewed an African American basketball star.  He asked an odd question.  What did this athlete think was the most incredible invention in the history of the world?  The basketball star replied: “A thermos bottle.”  Caught by surprise, Firestone asked “why?”

This man, known for his brawn and not his brains, said: “Well, a thermos bottle keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.  How do it know?”

Resveratrol beneficially exerts completely opposite biological activity in different organs simultaneously.  How do it know?

Copyright Bill Sardi, ResveratrolNews.com 2019