A Resveratrol SupplementMay Help Breast Cancer in Women
August 13th, 2010 Posted in Anxiety and DepressionNumerous scientific studes have been conducted recently on resveratrol and has been featured on prominent news programs like 60 Minutes. In an article published on WebMD, it was shown that supplementing with resveratrol may help prevent breast cancer.
Resveratrol is a substance called an antioxidant (this is why acai berries are so popular) that is found in the skin of red grapes, red grape juces, and red wines. reservatrol can also be found in peanuts and some berries like cranberries and blueberries. It is also becoming popular as a health supplement.
Estrogen has been established as one of the risk factors associated with breast cancer. If the body’s system for handling estrogen gets out of control, higher amounts of estrogen can interact with cells and cause tumors to begin growing.
Resveratrol research done by the staff of the University of Nebraska has shown that it may reduce the effects that estrogen has on causing the growth of tumors. It may also increase the production of an enzyme that destroys dangerous estrogen particles. This could mean that resveratrol supplements can stop breast cancer before it even starts, at least what is caused by excess estrogen.
For the laboratory tests, relatively low levels of resveratrol produced results when used systematically. Much more testing is required to figure out what level of supplement would need to be taken to produce the desired amount in the bloodstream, but since it is a low level, researches thing it is possible that it could be easily attained with a supplement.
In short, resveratrol research shows that resveratrol may stop the 1st step of the process that can lead to breast cancer that is caused by elevated estrogen levels. These tests were done in a test tube and show promising results, but further research must to be done before it can be proved that it really prevents breast cancer in women.
This article should be used for informational purposes only. There has been no approval by the FDA for any health condition or disease treatment with resveratrol. You should consult your doctor for any treatments needed and before starting any exercise or diet program. Much of the information used in this article was obtained from research done by Oregon State University and is published at lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/resveratrol/.
