The myth of poking grape seeds

Among all kinds of health products, grape seed extract is undoubtedly of great appeal The functions advertised by the businessmen range from lowering blood fat, cholesterol, anti-cancer to beauty, anti-aging, etc almost all kinds of fashionable functions are pasted on it What about the facts? Antioxidation does not mean that it can prevent diseases Through component analysis, it is found that grape seeds contain a lot of vitamin E, flavonoids, linoleic acid and a kind of composition called oligoprocyanidin complex (OPCS) In addition to linoleic acid, all of them have good antioxidant properties Some free radicals are produced by oxidation in human body, and free radicals can attack cell membrane and DNA It is now generally believed that "antioxidant" seems to be able to tie in with aging and disease As a result, a variety of "antioxidant" health products came into being It is difficult to swallow grape seeds directly Even if swallowed, most of them pass through the intestines, and the "active ingredients" are difficult to be absorbed by the human body Therefore, the only way to use it is to extract the active ingredients and make them into health products Whether the antioxidants in grape seed extract have health care function or not has attracted many scientists' attention It was found that the antioxidant content in blood increased significantly after people ate grape seed extract As a result, many businesses use "the antioxidants in grape seed extract can be absorbed into the blood" to make more people pay 1 Protect the heart? Can the "whole" extract protect the heart? There have been some very preliminary animal experiments, "it seems" has a certain effect on lowering cholesterol and protecting blood vessels However, these experiments are too preliminary to be used as evidence 2 Anticancer effect? In some in vitro cell experiments, grape seed extract or OPCS showed better inhibition on some kinds of cancer cells This is the basis for advertisers to claim "anti-cancer" It should be noted that there is still a long way to go between "in vitro experiments can inhibit cancer cells" and "eating can fight cancer" On the one hand, it is only effective for some specific cancer cells On the other hand, cell experiments in vitro are totally different from those in vivo Every pharmaceutical company and Cancer Research Institute will find a large number of substances that are "effective in vitro cell experiments" every year, but few of them can finally prove "effective" through clinical trials All kinds of truths 1 "Adjuvant therapy" health care products like to claim that one kind of function is "adjuvant therapy" In 2006, British scholars published a second phase clinical study of grape seed extract in cancer patients 66 volunteers who had received radiotherapy for breast cancer in the early years and had moderate or obvious breast induration were randomly divided into two groups A group of 44 people took grape seed OPCS three times a day, 100 mg each time Another group of 22 took a placebo The reexamination after 12 months showed that there was no difference between the two groups 2 "Possibly effective" can be regarded as "possibly effective", which is probably to alleviate "chronic venous insufficiency" and edema The former is blood collection in the legs, causing pain, swelling, fatigue The latter may be related to injury, surgery or long sitting Some studies have shown that the use of grape seed extract may alleviate these symptoms In addition, all kinds of beauty, skin care, anti-aging and other functions are "good wishes", without the support of scientific evidence Conclusion: the components of grape seed extract are complex and have not been studied systematically It can only be said that "believe" it is safe for most people - there is an eight week clinical trial that does not find harm and can be counted as supporting this conclusion However, considering that such research is still insufficient, pregnant women, mothers and children should not take it from a prudent and prudent point of view.