Grapes and cancer

At least 10 years ago, maybe longer now my husband and I went for a tour of the Duplin Winery. No not in Napa Valley but in Rose Hill North Carolina. At the time they were selling wine and some wine preserves and things like that and they were also selling resveratrol. Resveratrol, at least at the time, was the liquid that came from the pressing of grape skins and seeds. They sold it in these old fashioned brown glass bottles and it was considered to be "health food". We thought it was at best folk medicine and at worst, snake oil.

Well now they sell it under the name of Nutragrape and there appears to be more research to back it up. Just yesterday a study was released showing that grape seed extract killed leukemia cells in the lab. It caused apoptosis, basically cell suicide. More details can be found in the January 1, 2009 issue of Clinical Cancer Research or here.

I certainly would not advise anyone to take anything, but I think I've got to take a closer look at it for myself. Have any of you used this? Has it been effective?

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