salvestrols - organic wines help fight cancer?

Everyone knows that eating fruit and vegetables is good for your health. Conventional advice is to eat at least five portions a day and evidence shows that a diet rich in plant-based foods helps to combat many diseases, especially cancer.

But, it is now also becoming apparent that certain fruits seem to be able to help prevent and in some cases even reverse the cancer process. A dedicated team of research scientists in Leicester believe that a key component, and a mechanism, in plants could be a major breakthrough in both cancer prevention and treatment. They believe that salvestrols, naturally-occurring compounds in certain plants, can help to explain how plants offer a treatment for cancer with fewer side effects than conventional treatments.

Salvestrols were found as a result of research into natural anti-cancer remedies. The work started looking at resveratrol (found in grape skins and red wine), which has been widely credited as having anti-cancer properties. Simply, it creates a toxic substance when changed by an enzyme, and this substance can bring about cell death of cancer cells, but which is non-toxic to other cells.

The Dr Briffa website states;

"The activation is dependent on a particular enzyme that is found exclusively in cancerous cells. This gives salvestrols the ability to be highly selective about the cells they kill: while they can be the kiss of death to cancerous cells, they leave healthy cells untouched.

Salvestrols, one example of which is the compound resveratrol, are found most abundantly in red fruits including cranberries, red grapes and strawberries. However, research shows that the growing method of fruit can have an important bearing on its salvestrol content. Generally, organic produce has a much higher salvestrol content compared to more intensively grown fruit. "

Salvestrol is the name coined to describe the group of molecules with similar properties to resveratrol.

In plants (and in our case, particularly in grapes) salvestrols are developed as a natural defence against fungus in organic and biodynamic crops. Modern agricultural methods, in particular the use of synthetic fungicides, prevents plants from producing salvestrols since they are not challenged by fungal infection.

There are about 50 types of organic foods found to be rich in salvestrols, including, of course, grapes and wine, particularly red wines. Also supplements are available from the usual outlets and via companies like Fruit Force.

To read some case studies where salvestrols have helped, visit the Patrick Holford website - click here.

To go directly to look at the selection of organic and biodynamic red wines available from Vin Vert click here.