Can Resveratrol Replace Aspirin in Heart Attack Prevention?

If you’re health conscious, you’ve likely heard of resveratrol, it’s definitely getting attention lately.  Resveratrol is the substance found primarily in the skin of red and purple grapes that is responsible for the “French Paradox”, or why the French consume a high fat diet yet have an extremely low rate of heart disease.  You may have thought all that wine drinking was just part of the culture, but researchers are becoming convinced about resveratrol’s cardio-protective abilities.

Everyone has seen the TV commercials touting aspirin as a preventative measure for heart attack.  In fact, doctors have been prescribing it, in low doses, for some time now.  While there is evidence that aspirin can help some, the reality is that an aspirin a day only helps prevent heart attacks in about 8 out of 1000 men and may not lower women’s risks at all!

In an effort to find an improvement to aspirin in the fight against heart attacks, researchers have been looking more closely at the cardio-protective attributes of resveratrol.  There is evidence that resveratrol may provoke a pre-conditioning effect in the heart whereby antioxidant defenses are activated prior to a heart attack, limiting damage to heart muscle.

In an interview with CBS News Affiliate KFVS-TV, Dipak Das, PhD, ScD, MD (hon), professor and director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Connecticut, School of Medicine said, “Resveratrol likely fulfills the definition of a pharmacological preconditioning compound and gives hope for the therapeutic promise of alternative medicine.”

Resveratrol also exhibits other beneficial properties such as thinning the blood and inhibiting clots from forming and inhibiting plaque from sticking to artery walls.  All of these reasons point to resveratrol possibly being far superior to aspirin in preventing heart attacks and limiting the damage they cause when they do occur.

While there are some resveratrol products on the market in pill form, I’d rather get this type of compound in a natural state when possible.  Supplements in pill form, many times, have a low efficacy rate when compared to the same compound in a more natural form.  Now I’m not suggesting you go out and drink red wine like a Frenchman…I’m just saying there are alternatives to popping pills.

Fruit of the Spirit, for instance, delivers therapeutic amounts of resveratrol from natural sources.  Fruit of the Spirit, is a whole, raw food and derives its benefits from whole fruits being puréed, stems, seeds, skins and all.  You just can’t beat Mother Nature.  On top of that Fruit of the Spirit gives you alkalizing minerals and an umbrella of antioxidant protection to support overall health.