Acta-Resveratrol - 90 V-Caps

What is Resveratrol?

Resveratrol is a polyphenol naturally found in the skin of red grapes, certain berries, and other plants. Scientific studies have shown that Resveratrol supports healthy cardiovascular function through various mechanisms. Resveratrol, especially when combined with other polyphenols, is known for it's anti-aging effects, as well as for its ability to support a healthy inflammatory response.

It is an antioxidant compound that is a phytoestrogen, or plant estrogen, which is protective of hormone-mediated cells in the body. Resveratrol is a potent antioxidant if stabilized. If not stable, it may quickly metabolize out of the body. This compound is believed responsible for some of the beneficial effects of moderate red wine drinking on the cardiovascular system. Resveratrol is also considered to be beneficial to smokers' lung tissue if it is stabilized to last long enough in the system to be transported there. Resveratrol is also an inhibitor of the COX-2 inflammatory enzyme and encourages cell death (apoptosis) of abnormally growing cells.

Resveratrol is a difficult substance to stabilize. Because of the difference between resveratrol produced in the oxygen-poor environment in red wine and the form of resveratrol in unstabilized supplements, it has long been thought that resveratrol supplements were not very effective in comparison with wine. Knowing the importance of how a resveratrol supplement is metabolized, Now's scientific staff has recently developed a special technique of stabilizing this compound in order to have an antioxidant effect closer to drinking a good glass of wine. While both trans and cis forms of resveratrol are naturally occurring, most of the recorded health benefits are attributed to the trans form.

What are OPC's

Oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPC) are a group of flavinoids that have powerful antioxidant potential. Antioxidants protect cells from oxidative damage by neutralizing free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that in their bid to become more stable must bump into healthy cells and cause damage. They are produced in the body as a byproduct of normal metabolism or can come from pollutants, UV radiation, infections and the liver's processing of toxins.

What is an Antioxidant?

Antioxidants are nutrients that help to protect your body from the damage caused by free radicals - the toxic molecules that play a role in the development of diseases from cataracts to heart disease, to arthritis. While our bodies produce some of these free radicals as the "garbage" from some its natural processes, we are now exposed to more and more of them from our environment than ever before.

The chemical pollution of our air and water now leave us exposed to very powerful free radicals that we have never been exposed to in the past. In combination with the nutrient depletion of our foods from modern chemical agriculture, we now also get less of the important nutrients from it that would normally help our immune systems fight these chemical invaders. This is why many nutritional doctors recommend their patients take supplements of antioxidants.

How Antioxidants Protect Your Cells:

When a free radical enters your body, it is attracted to the cells that make up the different tissues of it just like a magnet to metal. It then bonds to parts of the cell, which causes it to deteriorate in a way similar to that which oxygen causes metal to rust. If the cell gets damaged enough, it dies. Worse yet, if the cell DNA is damaged and then the cell reproduces, it reproduces abnormally as a result. When this happens to our skin, we get wrinkles; when it happens to our oxygen carrying blood vessels, we get hardening of the arteries; when it happens to our joints, we get arthritis; in some people.

Antioxidants work by bonding with the free radical before it can bond to the cells of your body, thus neutralizing it. This now harmless substance is then deconstructed or merely excreted.