Resveratol: Healthy Food Chemical in Red Wine Anti-Cancer Diet that may fight Breast Cancer

Red wine is a type of wine made from dark-colored grapes varieties. The external color of the wine can range from intense violet for young wines, through to brick red for matured wines, and brown for older red wines. The red color of red wine comes from anthocyan pigments present in the skin of the grapes which produce a red colored juice. Most of the red wine’s flavor and color comes from the grape skin. 

Before we go further, it is important to state here that red wine in this context refers to non-alcoholic red wine.  As one of the healthy things to eat, red wine in our diet has a lot of non anti-cancer benefits. One
research study stated that drinking non-alcoholic red wine is linked with a reduced risk of blood pressure and heart attack in susceptible people. One scientist puts it this way: if you want to control blood pressure, drinking non-alcoholic red wine may be one good dietary measure you could take. It is non-alcoholic red wine that scientist have discovered to reduce the risk of cancer development. The American Medical Association said through a report that drinking three glasses of alcoholic beverages a week (no matter the type) could modestly raise the risk of developing breast cancer.

As a one of the healthy things to be added to our anti-cancer diet, red wine is believed to be able to reduce a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. A study by the international Journal on Cancer showed that drinking a glass of red wine daily reduces the risk of developing prostate and breast cancer while drinking a 4-ounce glass of red wine per week can reduce the incidence of prostate cancer by 60%. This is because red wine contains natural food chemicals in form of antioxidants called polyphenols. These food chemicals is what scientist believe contributes to red wine’s anti-cancer abilities. Red wine is a rich source of biologically active food chemicals such as Cathechins and Resveratol. This article is dedicated to the anti-cancer properties of resveratol.

Resveratol is a food chemical which is a kind of polyphenols called phytoalexin. This is a chemical found in plants which serves as a part of a plant’s defense system, in response to invading fungus, stress, injury etc. Red wine contains a high level of resveratol. Cell and animal studies of this food chemical has examined its effect on leukemia, skin, prostate and breast cancer, and results have revealed that it has the anti-cancer ability to inhibit the growth of many types of cancer. A report published by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) journal showed why this food chemical should be part of a woman’s anti-cancer diet. It stated that one of the anti-cancer abilities of resveratol is to slow down the growth of breast cancer cells.

As one of the healthy things to eat, red wine in our anti-cancer diet has shown anti-cancer properties in both preventing and fighting breast cancer. A research study by a woman’s health journal revealed that women who drank 8 ounces of red wine for a month had a slight decrease in estrogen level. Estrogen is known to play an important part in breast cancer cell growth. Okay, before we look at the anti-cancer activities of this food chemical, it would be important to understand how estrogen plays a part in causing breast cancer.

Estrogen can increase the risk of breast cancer cell growth by causing breast cancer cells to proliferate. During menstrual cycle, estrogen generally triggers proliferation of the inner lining of the mammary glands. These estrogen levels eventually deteriorate and die off when the menstrual cycle ends. However, because estrogen cannot differentiate between cancer cells and normal cells, when breast cancer cells are present, it causes the proliferation of the cancer cells just as it would the normal cells. This is how breast cancer spreads.

However, the anti-cancer activity of resveratol here is to fight breast cancer by blocking the growth effect of estrogen. Studies have shown that breast cancer cells, when treated with this food chemical in red wine, and compared with untreated cancer cells, showed a significant reduction in breast cancer cell growth. Further test results identified the reduction in growth of these cancer cells as the anti-cancer activity of resveratol to drastically reduce the estrogen receptor levels. Recent studies have shown that drugs used to treat breast cancer are aimed at blocking the effect of estrogen.

In conclusion, it has also been known that this food chemical can fight other cancers in several other ways which include:

1. Reducing cell inflammation by blocking genes that are responsible for cancer formation and promotion.

2. Suppressing the activation of NK kappa B, a protein that is produced by the body's immune system when it is under attack. This protein promotes cancer cell growth and metastasis.

Although research information is still in its early stages, there is evidence that resveratol may be an effective chemopreventive agent in the 3 stages of cancer progression which are initiation, promotion and progression.