Brain Plugs

Resveratrol: Designed to Protect, if Sourced Wisely

Resveratrol, which acts like a potent antioxidant, is a compound found in grape skins, red wine, raspberries, pomegranates, raw cacao and dark chocolate, among other plant-based foods.

It's a polyphenol designed to increase the life span of plants through disease resistance and such stressors as drastic changes in climate, too much ultraviolet light and disease.

It was probably intuition that caused scientists to explore what resveratrol might be able to do for humans and, sure enough, it imparts very similar protective benefits. But if you read this and think you'll get the neuroprotective and anti-aging benefits by drinking more red wine, that's not how it works.

One way to access the benefits of resveratrol is by eating muscadine grapes, which contain the highest concentration among foods, especially in the skin. Mulberries and blueberries are other good sources.

Limit your intake to one-half cup per day, however, because fruit also contains fructose. A whole food resveratrol supplement containing bits of muscadine grape skin is another option.

Resveratrol 'Zaps' Free Radicals and Performs Many Other Functions

One of the most dramatic advantages resveratrol provides is its power to annihilate free radicals, produced by your body as a part of normal metabolism. They're a natural biological response to environmental toxins you encounter every day, such as lawn fertilizer, your pet's flea collar, food preservatives and medications.

When your body can't fight the bombardment of toxins, your cells begin to oxidize, a process that's been described as "biological rusting." Free radicals can damage your DNA, cause disease and compromise your entire immune system.

Antioxidants, on the other hand, stave off the damage done by free radicals, which is one reason why resveratrol is so remarkable. It can also help fight the aging process throughout your body, from your skin to your cells. A list of several functions resveratrol may help with includes:

Another crucial way resveratrol helps your brain is that it can cross the blood-brain barrier, or BBB. Examined Existence explains that a century ago, scientists found that blue dye injected into animal tissues turned those tissues blue, but would not permeate the brain or spinal cord.5

That resveratrol is able to get across your brain barrier means that brain inflammation can be regulated and decreased in your central nervous system. Part of the significance of this ability is that brain inflammation is a factor in the development of most neurodegenerative diseases.

Neuroprotective Effects of Resveratrol Positively Impacts Alzheimer's

Medical News Today explains that brain inflammation which, again, makes Alzheimer's worse, is thought to occur because of a reaction to accumulated proteins in the brain, including Abeta40 and Abeta42.

Another study involving resveratrol given to mice had interesting effects, including increased aerobic activity and running time, protection against diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance, regulated metabolic function and stable health overall.

Resveratrol Helps Control Inflammation, Present in Most Disease

Inflammation can be implicated in nearly every disease. Dr. Josh Axe, founder of Exodus Health Center, one of the largest functional medicine clinics in the world, asserts that it's also been found to be associated with just about every health condition:

Because of resveratrol's extraordinary capabilities as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, taking resveratrol supplements and eating the foods that contain it can go a long way toward lowering inflammation. However, another immediate and meaningful way to deal with it is to rid your body of inflammation triggers in your diet.

Resveratrol is one of the top five chemopreventive agents found in food, among such illustrious players as curcumin, lycopene, capsaicin, lutein, beta carotene, selenium, vitamin E, flavonoids, dietary fiber and many others.

Additionally, resveratrol's ability to lower inflammation also helps prevent certain enzymes from forming that would trigger the development of cancerous tumors. Resveratrol helps cut down cell reproduction, which in turn lowers the number of cell divisions that might cause cancer cell growth.

An example of the way resveratrol works was shown two different ways in one clinical study at the University of Missouri. Melanoma cancer cells were found to be more vulnerable to radiation treatment when treated with resveratrol beforehand. Notably, resveratrol used by itself caused 44 percent of the cancerous cells to undergo apoptosis, or programmed cell death.