Resveratrol Supplements May Help Prevent Breast Cancer
Resveratrol has been the topic of numerous scientific studies and has been featured on prominent news programs like 60 Minutes. According to an article published by WebMD, resveratrol may help prevent breast cancer.
Resveratrol is an antioxidant that is found in the skin of red grapes, red wines, and red grape juices. It is also found in peanuts and some berries like cranberries and blueberries. It is also becoming popular as a health supplement.
One of the risk factors for breast cancer is exposure to estrogen. If the body’s system for handling estrogen gets out of balance, high levels of estrogen can interact with cells and cause tumors to start growing.
Research that was done at the University of Nebraska has shown that resveratrol can decrease the effect that estrogen has on causing tumor growth. It also increases the production of an enzyme that destroys dangerous estrogen particles. This could mean that resveratrol stops breast cancer before it gets started, at least what is caused by excess estrogen.
For the laboratory tests, relatively low levels of resveratrol were used to produce the desired results. Further testing is required to determine what amount of supplement would need to be taken to produce this level in the blood, but since it is a low level, researchers are hopeful that this can easily be accomplished
In short, their research shows that resveratrol may stop the first step of the process that leads to breast cancer that is caused by increased estrogen levels. These tests were done in a test tube and show promising results, but much more research needs to be done before it can be proved that it actually prevents breast cancer in women.
Much of the information in this article was taken from a report published on WebMD at webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20080707/resveratrol-may-prevent-breast-cancer. Although many health claims have been made for resveratrol by researchers, the benefits of taking this supplement have not been formally tested in definitive clinical trials so please do your own research before deciding if resveratrol supplements are right for you.
Tags: resveratrol, resveratrol supplement, resveratrol supplements
