Red Wine and its anti-cancer properties have been long known in the field of medicine. Red wine is an excellent source of polyphenols including cathechins and resveratrol that are claimed to be anti-oxidant and are working as anti-cancer compounds.
Recent study has proven that the chemical found in red wine may help prevent cancer. And this may be the reason for the existing French paradox where the French consumes a very high fat diet and yet, they have low incidence of diseases.
Can resveratrol really cure cancer? Resveratrol has been proven scientifically to cure cancer in animals, but not in humans. Yahoo reports that the research done by the University of Colorado Cancer Center at the CU School of Medicine has found that resveratrol in the grape skin repress the carcinogens in the body.
The study used mice that are induced with cancer. The researchers injected chemo-preventive compounds found in red wine and they found out that the tumors shriveled while the other cancer cells stopped propagating.
When asked if drinking red wine everyday could prevent the development of cancer, Robert Sclafani, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the CU School of Medicine said that there is no basis that it can happen.
Sclafani reiterates that drinking red wine in moderation is essential. Resveratrol can also be found in different foods aside from red wine. It is present in Thai foods and peanuts.
Another study published by Dan Nosowitz says that red wine has anti-cancer properties, but can it really cure cancer? He stated that the earlier study was tested in mice and not in humans so there is no exact basis whether it can really work to cure cancer.
Nosowitz presented that if the amount of resveratrol used in treating the mice with cancer will be used in humans, humans will be susceptible to alcohol poisoning. Red wine offers about 160 µg of resveratrol per ounce.
If a glass or red wine has five ounces or 800 µg per glass, or 0.0008 grams it is still far from the amount of red win used for the earlier research that used about two to five grams of resveratrol.
To understand the equation, he stated that human need to consume 2,500 glasses of wine or 492.9 bottles of wine to get the exact dosage in the study. He also contests the idea of taking resveratrol supplements.
He said although supplements can increase the amount of resveratrol, one pill can only contain 200 and 500 mg of resveratrol and this is not yet regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Nosowitz claimed that red wine has antioxidants that can help cancer, but further studies are still needed to prove that it can really cure cancer.
