In the 1980s, a group of French researchers were examining national statistics for heart health when they noticed something interesting about their country…
Somehow, even though the French ate high amounts of saturated fat, they maintained lower rates of coronary heart disease than people with similar diets in other countries.
Researchers called the phenomenon “The French Paradox.”
As they began investigating, their attention soon turned to the French custom of drinking wine with meals. Could that be a factor? Could there be something in the wine – especially the red wine – that counteracted the expected effects of a diet high in saturated fat?
Ultimately, the research was inconclusive as to whether red wine was the cause of better heart health. However, it did lead to an exciting discovery.
While they were examining the wine, scientists noticed a polyphenol that up until then was almost unheard of, and virtually unstudied… Resveratrol.
Research into resveratrol took off, and scientists discovered that the flavonoid – found in the skins of grapes used to make red wine and in several other plants – offers benefits for more than just heart health.
From promoting healthy cognitive function to fighting free radicals, and from supporting healthy DNA to helping maintain healthy blood pressure already in the normal range, resveratrol demonstrates a remarkable scope of health-promoting activity.
There have now been over 15,000 studies done on resveratrol, showing it has a range of antioxidant properties that contribute to health and longevity.
And scientists have found that resveratrol operates along some interesting biological pathways. Let’s take a look at what they’ve found and what it can do for your health.
How Modern Life Puts Extra Stress on Your Cells
Your body is constantly under assault from normal life stressors, not to mention the additional burden of modern health hazards.
From air pollution to chemicals in tap water, and from toxic cleaning products to electromagnetic fields and WiFi exposure, widespread environmental pollution places strain on your body’s normal detoxification system.
Lifestyle factors, such as eating processed foods and working indoors, further stretch your detox system and sap your body’s energy. And many modern communities aren’t set up for regular exercise or social connection, causing you to miss out on these important outlets for managing daily stress.
All these pressures can add up to a heavy load on your cells’ mitochondria, the place where your body’s energy is generated.
Mitochondria are known as the “powerhouse of the cell” because they turn the food you eat and the oxygen you breathe into forms of energy your cells can use. Each of your cells has hundreds to thousands of mitochondria, depending on the type of body tissue.
Mitochondrial function is closely associated with cell aging.
Studies have discovered that as you grow older, your mitochondria undergo damage and mutations that affect how well they function. Damaged mitochondria accumulate in cells and your cells produce fewer new mitochondria as you age.
This has a big impact on the health and longevity of your heart cells, which are made up of about 35% mitochondria by volume.
It also impacts your cognitive health, as the mitochondria in your brain cells consume huge amounts of oxygen – 20% of your body’s entire intake. And this, even though your brain is only 2% of your body mass.
Your cardiovascular and cognitive health, as well as your overall health and longevity, are influenced by environmental factors and lifestyle choices that influence oxidative stress in your cells.
Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to promote the health of your cells – including your energy-generating mitochondria – and support your heart and cognitive health.
Take These Important Steps Daily to Help Protect Your Cognitive and Heart Health
Your daily lifestyle choices can have a big influence on how well your body handles daily stressors, and on your health and longevity. Your choices affect your body’s ability to detox, heal and function normally.
Here’s how some daily life choices can affect your cardiovascular and cognitive health:
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Adequate Amount of Sleep – The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends a minimum of seven hours – free radicals can accumulate in your cells and cause oxidative stress.
This can contribute to fatigue, brain fog and memory loss, as well as narrowing of the blood vessels, arterial hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
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Regular Exercise – The American Heart Association lists a sedentary lifestyle as one of the five major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Regular exercise can lower blood pressure, reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, boost mood and memory, and improve sleep. A regular exercise routine doesn’t have to be complicated. A 20-minute walk, five days a week, offers many benefits.
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Harmful chemicals and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) – Exposure to many chemicals including PCBs, phthalates and certain types of pesticides and fire retardants has been shown to increase the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and neurological impairment.
EMFs can affect the action of atoms in your body, potentially interfering with heart rhythm, blood pressure and cognitive function. Studies suggest that this happens when your body can’t detox normally, causing excessive free radicals and oxidative stress.
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Proper Diet – Certain foods nourish your body, and others harm it. When you eat a lot of sugar and processed foods, your body burns mostly carbs for energy, which creates excessive free radicals.
A diet low in net carbs and high in healthy fats, with moderate protein – known as “ketogenic” – can help protect your cells by reducing the creation of free radicals.
A ketogenic diet allows you to burn fat, which is a more efficient form of energy production. It also supplies your body with higher amounts of necessary nutrients, including the antioxidants that are plentiful in fruits and vegetables.
This Fascinating Antioxidant Helps Your Body Fight Free Radicals and Early Aging
With all this stress your body is under, consuming plenty of antioxidants is more crucial to good health than ever before. Antioxidants are molecules that fight free radicals in your body, helping to prevent or slow down damage to cells.
Free radicals are created in your body in one of two ways…
Your body produces them during normal metabolic processes, and they are formed when you’re exposed to harmful stimuli such as X-rays, air pollution and chemicals.
Free radicals are unstable molecules that travel around your body, searching for electrons to steal from stable molecules. When they find them, they generate new unstable molecules, and create more free radicals.
This process is called oxidation. It can produce a chain reaction that leads to cellular aging, inflammation and oxidative stress, which affects your cells like rust affects metal.
Oxidative stress can weaken and damage your cellular DNA, contributing to early aging.
But when you consume plenty of antioxidants, the antioxidants help stabilize those free radicals and protect your cells from early aging.
One of the most impressive antioxidants that scientists have discovered came to the forefront when they were investigating the French Paradox… Resveratrol.
What they have found is that resveratrol helps fight free radicals, supports healthy cellular growth, promotes healthy heart function, helps protect mitochondria and can even cross the blood-brain barrier to directly benefit cognitive function.*
Let’s take a look at some of the unique ways it does this…
How Resveratrol Interacts With Your Cells to Help Activate Longevity Genes
Resveratrol was first discovered in 1938 by Michio Takaoka, but scientists didn’t really begin studying it until the 1990s, when everyone got interested in the French Paradox.
Since then, resveratrol has developed a reputation as a “longevity molecule” because of the way it activates a class of genes called sirtuin proteins.
In fact, resveratrol is classified as a “STAC” – a “sirtuin-activating compound.”
Sirtuins play an important role in cellular processes that affect the death and survival of your cells, as well as inflammation, DNA repair, detoxification and energy production – all factors in healthy aging.
In order to function properly, sirtuins require a critical coenzyme called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD. Some studies suggest that resveratrol may affect sirtuins by increasing levels of NAD.
Your mitochondria also require NAD in order to produce ATP, the all-important molecule that stores and carries energy within your cells. Levels of NAD are especially high in the mitochondria of your heart cells and neurons.
Other studies suggest that resveratrol may activate AMPK, an enzyme which helps regulate your cellular energy metabolism and activates SIRT1, one of the sirtuins.
Interestingly, resveratrol affects SIRT1 activation in much the same way as a calorie-restricted diet, which has been found to promote healthy longevity.
While the exact way it operates is still under investigation, thousands of published studies have established that resveratrol benefits your cells by stimulating the activity of sirtuins.*
This is great news for your cardiovascular system, where sirtuins act as key regulators of health. And for your cognitive health, where sirtuin activity is linked to thinking agility and memory.
A Powerful Protector of Plants, This Stilbenoid Also Helps Protect Your Cells
When you learn the reason that plants make resveratrol, it’s not surprising that it has such impressive antioxidant effects for humans.
Resveratrol belongs to a special category of compounds known as phytoalexins.
Phytoalexins are compounds produced by a plant when it’s under stress. They help a plant survive extreme temperatures, drought and other environmental challenges.
Resveratrol belongs to the group of phytoalexins called stilbenoids. In fact, it’s the most widely-studied of the stilbenoids.
Stilbenoids offer a variety of potential benefits for human health, including:
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Support for healthy cognitive function.*
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Potential protection for the cardiovascular system.*
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Promotion of healthy cell growth.*
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Support for healthy metabolic function.*
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Promotion of healthy mitochondrial biogenesis, or replication.*
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Support for a normal inflammatory response
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Antioxidant properties.*
With all these health-supporting qualities, it’s no wonder resveratrol is celebrated for its effects on health and longevity.
This is especially true for two key areas of well-being – heart and cognitive health…
Kick Your Body’s Custodian Team Into Gear – How Resveratrol Promotes Cognitive Health
Due to their high energy requirements, brain cells are especially susceptible to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. This makes the antioxidant power of resveratrol especially valuable for cognitive health.
One of the important processes your body uses for keeping your cells healthy is called autophagy (pronounced aw-TAHF-uh-jee). In autophagy, your body breaks down and cleans out damaged and abnormal cell components.
It’s essentially the janitorial process for your cells, steadily cleaning the damaged bits out of the way to keep your mitochondria and other cell processes humming along.
Autophagy is vital for keeping your brain cells healthy and, like many cellular functions, autophagy naturally decreases as you age.
But studies have found that resveratrol may help improve autophagic activity in your cells,
Resveratrol has also been shown in studies to:
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Have the potential to cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing it to deliver its antioxidant benefits directly to neural cells.*
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Promote cerebral blood flow in the frontal cortex of normal, healthy individuals, positively affecting performance on cognitive tasks.*
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Limit free radicals, including ROS, by increasing the quantity of antioxidant enzymes in the mitochondria.*
In addition, resveratrol helps activate SIRT1, which plays a key role in promoting healthy, normal cognitive function and neural cell growth.
Two Types of Resveratrol – Which One Do You Have?
Not only does resveratrol offer powerful benefits for your heart and cognitive health, but studies have found that it has the potential to promote healthy function throughout your body.
From positive effects on joint and respiratory health, to metabolic and skin health, resveratrol shows a wide range of beneficial biological activity.*
Its antioxidant power promotes longevity by supporting cellular health and healthy cell growth.
But did you know there are two types of resveratrol?
Trans-resveratrol and cis-resveratrol have the same atoms and same number of double bonds, but they are arranged slightly differently. And that arrangement makes all the difference in your body’s ability to use it.
The diagram above shows the molecular structure for trans-resveratrol, the more biologically active form of resveratrol. The other type is cis-resveratrol.
Cis comes from a Latin root meaning “the same side as,” while trans means “across from.”
Now, that may be an interesting flashback to chemistry class, but the important point is that when you’re looking for a resveratrol supplement, you should get one with the highest trans-resveratrol content you can find.
The resveratrol in our Organic Resveratrol, which comes from highly sustainable organic Japanese knotweed, is 99.9% trans-resveratrol.
To help maximize your body’s ability to absorb and use the trans-resveratrol, some scientists recommend taking it with a little fat, such as yogurt, olive oil or coconut milk.
It’s Called Knotweed, Itadori and Japanese Bamboo – We Call It an Outstanding Source of Resveratrol
While resveratrol is found in several plants, we chose to source our Organic Resveratrol from organic Japanese knotweed.
Japanese knotweed was first brought to the U.S. in the late 1800’s. Growing in dense clumps up to nine feet high, with broad, deep green leaves and fluffy white flower clusters, it was popular on estates as an ornamental plant.
As you might guess from its name, it’s native to Asia, where it’s used in traditional health preparations.
It has a lemony, sour taste that people often compare to rhubarb, so foragers like to collect it and put it in salads, jams, sorbets and sauces.
And it’s a plentiful source of trans-resveratrol.
We chose to source our Organic Resveratrol from organic Japanese knotweed for two reasons:
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It contains a high percentage of trans-resveratrol – up to 50% of Organic Japanese Knotweed Root Extract.
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It grows extremely fast – up to eight inches in height per day. Its speedy growth has earned it the name Japanese bamboo, and makes it cost-friendly as well as highly sustainable.
In addition to being sustainably sourced, Organic Resveratrol contains 99.9% trans-resveratrol, the more bioactive form. And it’s one of the few 100% organic resveratrol supplement on the market, including the capsule.
Double the Impact – This Synergistic Duo Works Overtime to Support Heart and Cognitive Health
One way to get the most out of the potential heart and cognitive benefits of Organic Resveratrol is to combine it with our Quercetin and Pterostilbene Advanced.
Many antioxidant compounds work synergistically, interacting with each other to increase their beneficial impact on your body. Resveratrol, quercetin and pterostilbene have this kind of cooperative relationship.
Studies show that resveratrol and quercetin work together to affect multiple metabolic pathways in your body. Other studies show that both quercetin and pterostilbene interact with resveratrol to increase the antioxidant power of all three.
Each formula – Organic Resveratrol and Quercetin and Pterostilbene Advanced – provides powerful support for your body. Taken together, their synergistic relationships offer enhanced support for:
- Heart health*
- Memory and mental focus*
- Healthy blood flow*
- Exercise and performance recovery*
- Mitochondrial health*
- Overall cellular health*
Quercetin and Pterostilbene Advanced combines a special quercetin phytosome complex with trans-pterostilbene (the more active and absorbable form, just like resveratrol) greatly enhancing the bioavailability of both antioxidant compounds.
This concentrated and enhanced formula works synergistically with Organic Resveratrol to support optimal health.
Experience the Power of Organic Resveratrol For Yourself, and Give Your Heart and Cognitive Health the Support it Needs
When the French research team looked into the components of red wine so many years ago, they couldn’t have imagined where that research would lead.
Now, thousands of studies later, resveratrol has been established as a potent antioxidant and longevity-promoting compound.
Our Organic Resveratrol goes a step beyond others – it is one of the few all-organic resveratrol supplements on the market, including the capsule. And we’ve made sure that it provides you with the form your body can absorb better – trans-resveratrol.
Sourced from highly sustainable, resveratrol-rich organic Japanese knotweed, it meets our high standards for responsible environmental stewardship.
With its antioxidant power and its ability to activate sirtuins, resveratrol offers unique potential benefits for your heart and cognitive health. Its potential beneficial effects on cellular health, mitochondria and many body functions help make it a highly sought-after antioxidant supplement.
Harness the power of this remarkable molecule to support your cellular, cognitive, cardiovascular health and overall longevity, and order Organic Resveratrol today.