Grape Seed Extract

Our OPC Grape Seed Extract is naturally extracted, so there are NO chemical or solvent residues.

We recommend that you only use a grape seed extract that contains 95% OPC consisting of monomers and oligomers.

Discussion

OPC's (Oligomeric Proanthocyanidins) are a set of bioflavonoid complexes that perform as free radical scavengers in the human body. Many names refer to this set of bioflavonoids, including PCO's (Oligomeric Procyanidolic Complexes), leuco anthocyanin, anthocyanidin and still others. We will refer to them as OPC's for the duration of this discussion.

OPC's are types of bioflavonoids, very powerful ones. Bioflavinoids are parts of plants that are actually assimilated into our body tissues when we consume them. It was, in fact, this very ability that led to their discovery.

OPC bioflavonoids were first noticed in the laboratory because they have the uncanny ability to strengthen blood vessel walls within hours after taking them! The person responsible for their discovery was a French scientist named Dr. Jacques Masquelier, who first tested bioflavonoid containing peanuts on lab animals and discovered that their blood vessel walls would double in strength only hours after eating them. His discovery was made in 1948. In 1951, this same doctor extracted OPC's from pine bark.

What OPC's Can Do For You:

Keep connective tissue soft
Anti-inflammatory, which includes acting as an anti-arthritic, anti-histaminic, and anti-allergic agent
Prevent degenerative diseases
Halt cataract progression
Reduce skin aging
Protect lungs

In 1970, Dr. Masquelier obtained yet another patent for these bioflavonoids - a far more potent product. It is the grape seed extract that you may have heard about, and it is a powerful substance indeed.

Oxidation Theory Of Chronic Illness

Looking at that list, you may be sceptical, but OPC's have one underlying ability that was discovered by Dr. Masquelier in 1986, and that is the ability of Oligomeric Proanthocyanidins to scavenge free radicals from the body. Free radicals are simply oxygen atoms that are robbed of an electron through the body's natural metabolic processes.

If you exercise or smoke, you are exposed to higher levels of these free radicals than most people. Ironically, people who exercise are exposed to more free radicals than those who don't because they have faster, more vigorous metabolisms. Smokers, and second-hand smokers are bombarded by free radicals, because free radicals are also the product of pollutants (inefficient combustion).

The oxygen atom, which in a stable state has four pairs of electrons, becomes unstable when it loses an electron. An oxygen atom with seven electrons is referred to as a free radical. This name aptly describes its action in the body, too. Just as water pools, and vacuums are filled quickly in nature, free radicals quickly attach themselves to something - in this case body tissues - in order to stabilize themselves.

What happens is the free radical takes an electron from the membrane of a body tissue and by doing so, produces yet another free radical, which then is obliged by its charge to seek out another electron - in your body.

What results is a cascade of oxidations - literally rusting body tissues. This is such a pernicious and ubiquitous phenomenon in the body, that free radical oxidation has recently been proposed as the sole source of chronic degenerative disease!

Enter OPC's

Oligomeric Proanthocyanidins, in fact anti-oxidants in general, are structured in such a way that they are able to donate electrons freely without altering their valence (their electrons are not paired) - what this means is that anti-oxidants can stabilize free radicals without themselves becoming dangerous. In fact, anti-oxidants will go about donating electrons until they have no more; one anti-oxidant molecule is able to neutralize many free radicals.

It is by the number of available electrons in a given anti-oxidant that we are able to rate their effectiveness. If anti-oxidant A has twice the number of available electrons as anti-oxidant B, then A is said to be twice as potent as B.

To put OPC's in perspective among other anti-oxidants, they are 20 times as potent as Vitamin C, and 50 times as potent as Vitamin E (20 and 50 are nice round numbers, but remember OPC's are a class of bioflavonoids, and these are approximations).

As if to cement the necessity of including OPC's in our diets, The Lancet recently released in a widely popularized study that lack of Vitamin E was a more consistent predictor of heart disease than high cholesterol levels! The Lancet, one of the world's top medical journals published their study (randomized, double-blind) in their March 23, 1996 issue, results that indicated low levels of Vitamin E to be predictive of heart attacks 62% of the time, while high cholesterol was predictive only 29% of the time.

It is our assertion that this is due to Vitamin E's anti-oxidant properties. We invite you to recall OPC's ability to strengthen blood vessel walls and draw your own conclusions. (Why not take both?)

References:
Wang, Z., Y. Huang, J. Zou, K. Cao, Y. Xu and J. M. Wu (2002). "Effects of red wine and wine polyphenol resveratrol on platelet aggregation in vivo and in vitro." Int J Mol Med 9(1): 77-79.

Jerome L. Fleg, MD; Hidetaka Hougaku, M.D.; Edward G. Lakatta, M.D.; Mary K. Kemper; Christopher J. Earley, M.D.; and E. Jeffrey Metter, M.D. American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2001.

Grape Seed Extract

"100 % Risk Free"! (Just enter your name and email above)

"100 % Risk Free"!
(Just enter your name and email above)