(NaturalNews) You've probably heard about resveratrol, a miracle antioxidant found in grape skins and some other foods and linked to a lower risk of heart disease and to lessened effects of aging. Unlike other antioxidants such as anthocyanins, which give blueberries their color and are an integral part of the fruit, plants produce resveratrol only in response to fungal or bacterial attack. That's right -- resveratrol is a natural antibiotic and fungicide. This means that the more natural fungi and bacteria a plant is exposed to, the more resveratrol it will produce. If a grape plant is repeatedly sprayed with synthetic fungicides -- and grapes are among the most chemically treated crops cultivated today -- the resveratrol content in the fruit will be lower.
That's why eating conventional grapes sprayed with fungicides -- or drinking non-organic wine -- doesn't provide much resveratrol at all! So all those people hyping red wine as "medicine" may be totally wrong if the wine is made from grapes sprayed with fungicides.
This alone may be incentive enough to buy only organic grapes and wines, because resveratrol may also help maintain healthy programmed cell death, thus staving off cancer. Resveratrol actually alters gene expression in your body, allowing your cells to better resist cancer, heart disease and many other degenerative health conditions.
Studies have also shown that resveratrol can also make chemotherapy more effective against tumors, weaken viruses including influenza and HIV, counter the effects of a high-fat diet and increase physical endurance. Perhaps most miraculously, resveratrol supplements appear to extend the lifespan of yeast, worms and even fish.
Source:25 Amazing Facts About Food, authored by Mike Adams and David Guiterrez. This report reveals surprising things about where your food comes from and what's really in it! Download the full report (FREE) by clicking here. Inside, you'll learn 24 more amazing but true facts about foods, beverages and food ingredients. Instant download of the complete PDF. All 25 facts are documented and true.
Sources for this article include: http://www.naturalnews.com/028267_resveratrol_heart_disease.html http://www.naturalnews.com/024487_cabbage_red_anthocyanins.html http://www.naturalnews.com/024409_resveratrol_cancer_pancreatic.html
In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.
With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource now featuring over 10 million scientific studies.