Article written by Bill Sardi.
A few months ago I penned a report asking Why Isn’t Resveratrol Being Used After Every Heart Attack?” The report revealed stent-happy cardiologists only presume they are saving lives with stents AFTER damage to the heart has already been done.
Resveratrol has been documented to reduce the size of a heart attack (area of scarring, or fibrosis, as cardiologists call it). One lone non-invasive cardiologist even reported a live case where the protective effect could be observed by doctors who for reasons of patient age and fragility could not safely advance a wire into a blocked coronary artery (called balloon angioplasty) and noticed the 90-year old patient who had been taking a resveratrol pill (Longevinex®) experienced no damage to his heart.
For ethical reasons, such an experiment in the animal lab can’t be duplicated in humans.
We now have a more recent report that provides mortality data from animals. The report, published in the American Journal of Translational Research, demonstrated how resveratrol activates anti-inflammatory macrophages in an experimentally induced heart attack, thus limiting the size (scarring) of a heart attack.
Macrophages are a class of white blood cells that engulfs and literally digests foreign substances, microbes, tumor cells, etc. But there are two types of macrophages: one that initiates inflammation (M1 macrophages) and another that devours inflammatory proteins (M2 macrophages). It is the inflammatory signal that summons white blood cells to the area, but excessive inflammation damages tissues.
Once heart muscle cells are scarred (killed) they are only slowly replaced and renewed. Heart muscle cells humans were born with are still alive in the heart. This is why cancer is not reported in the heart because the cell turnover rate is near zero. But this is also why patients have to live with scarred (fibrotic) muscle cells in the heart, which induce heart failure. There are currently no clinical applicable medications for injury to the heart following a heart attack.
Resveratrol was administered to laboratory mice prior to an intentionally-induced heart attack, accomplished by blocking a coronary artery via tightening a suture around the vessel. Then blood circulation was reestablished by relaxing the impinging suture, and as the heart muscle tissue is re-oxygenated, oxidation occurs. The damage to the heart occurs immediately after a heart attack and circulation is re-established, not during the event. This is called cardiac reperfusion injury.
Most prior experiments were performed with animal hearts that had been removed from the chest and their pumping action maintained. In this experiment, live animals were used.
Not only did resveratrol prevent millions of heart muscle cells from being damaged (scarred), only 58% of the animals survived the event up to 28 days following the experimentally induced heart attack versus 80% survival in the resveratrol-treated animals! This is remarkable given the experiment attempts to kill these lab animals.
Now there are sudden-death heart attacks. The chances of surviving these electrical storms in the heart are low. To prevent them, I’ve written about the importance of maintaining adequate electrolyte minerals (needed for the electrical impulse in the heart to produce a heartbeat), especially magnesium and potassium.
But if every high-risk heart patient, particularly those individuals who have already experienced a first-heart attack, were placed on a resveratrol (with the right dose), there might be hundreds of thousands of patients alive today who succumbed to their heart attack if this animal data can be extrapolated to humans.
I don’t know how many people have told me, especially men, that their father died of a heart attack when he was 30 or 40 or 50, in other words, at a relatively young age. These individuals with a family history of a mortal heart attack are ideal candidates for resveratrol supplementation. Studies show, as derived from animal studies, that 100-350 milligrams of resveratrol produces the most demonstrative protective effect (higher doses can actually increase heart damage). The only branded resveratrol pill that has been demonstrated to do this (and at the lowest dose of resveratrol) is Longevinex®. In fact, it protected millions more heart muscle cells from dying than plain resveratrol.
Sadly, most cardiologists are in the prevention business. So, the choice to use resveratrol is yours. In over a decade of use, no resveratrol pills have been reported to induce serious side effects requiring hospitalization.
