Dr. Julian Whitaker's
Health & Healing
Tomorrow's Medicine Today
September 1995
Vol. 5, No. 9


Get Powerful Antioxidant Protection From Proanthocyanidins

In the winter of 1534-1535, explorer Jacques Cartier and his 110-man crew were icebound in the wilderness of Canada. After months of subsisting on rations of salted meat and hard bread, 25 had died and 40 were on the verge of death from scurvy. They were weak, covered with sores, had rotted gums and swollen legs1 and were too sick to even bury their dead9 who were simply thrown overboard onto the snow. Then Cartier met an Indian, Agaya, who gave him a tea made from pine bark. The Indians claimed that this tea was a cure for almost every malady, and it indeed rapidly reversed the scurvy in the seamen. Four centuries later, Jacques Masquelier, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Bordeaux in France, went to Canada to study the trees. He isolated a new class of antioxidants called ogligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs). Dr. Masquelier looked for a less expensive, more readily available source of OPC, and found it in red grape seeds. Most of the research on OPCs has been done with extracts of grape seeds, which are plentiful in the wine-producing region of France. In addition, the grape seeds have more potent concentrations of OPCs than pine bark. Over the last 26 years it has been shown that ~ are likely the most powerful antioxidants known. They are 50 times more powerful than vitamin E, and 20 times more powerful than vitamin C at preventing free radical formation or free radical scavenging. When taken together with vitamin C, OPCs enhance its effectiveness.

They Can Protect You Against Atherosclerosis and Diabetic Retinopathy

OPCs, like all antioxidants, protect your blood vessels and capillaries from free radical damage, so they can help prevent atherosclerosis and other vascular disorders. It is this same property which could make them valuable in treating and preventing diabetic retinopathy. Since there is no conventional medical treatment for diabetic retinopathy except increased insulin therapy, OPCs are, in my opinion, an essential agent for this condition. OPCs increase the elas-ticity of the collagen in your skin and connective tissue. They inhibit the production of histamine, which improves allergic conditions, and have an anti-inflammatory effect on people with arthritis. There are two sources of OPCs-pine bark (Pycnogenol) and grape seeds. I recommend you use the grape seed source because a great deal of the research demonstrating the benefits of OPC was done with grape seeds, and it's less expensive, at about half the price of the pine bark extract. I recommend OPCs to anyone, especially if you have a heart condition or diabetes.