Proanthocyanadins Protect The Heart From Dietary and Metabolic Acids

An alkalizing antioxidant polyphenols-rich diet
keeps the heart younger.

This finding comes out from a study by the University
of Grenoble in collaboration with the other Centres
participating to the FLORA Project, a European
Commission funded research studying the effects
of flavonoids, a variety of polyphenols, on human
health.

The scientific work, published in the Journal of
Nutrition, is one of the few approaching this field
by in vivo studies. “So far- says Marie-Claire
Toufektsian, leading author of the study - the
biological and protective activities of various
flavonoids have been extensively studied in vitro,
on cell- based assays. Nevertheless, this kind of
approach has a major limitation: it is extremely
difficult to assess precisely the nature of all
flavonoids absorbed following consumption of fruits
and vegetable plants present in a given meal. In
other words, laboratory cultured cells alone are
not sufficient to study a complex mechanism such
as that of absorption of food flavonoids”. That is
why we need to turn attention on other features.
The most obvious solution appeared to be to study
the effects of this kind of alkalizing polyphenols
on experimental animals. The turning point started
from fruit and vegetable plants: those rich in
flavonoids made the case of researchers.

Toufektsian used two kinds of corn: one
anthocyanin-free (anthocyanins is a variety
of flavonoids) and the other, obtained by the
Department of Biomolecular Sciences and
Biotechnology of University of Milan through
traditional cultivation techniques with no
transgenic modifications, rich in anthocyanins.
“The corn seeds were introduced into a rodent
food formula in order to obtain two groups of
rats following two different kinds of diet for
a couple of months” says Chiara Tonelli, head
of the Milan group. In the meantime researchers
accurately measured the anthocyanins levels in
urine and plasma samples from the two groups of
rats by using a method developed by the Research
Laboratories at the Catholic University of
Campobasso. Then researchers studied the onset
and evolution of myocardial infarction induced
experimentally in both groups.

“We found — Toufektsian adds — that chronic
consumption and effective absorption of
anthocyanins rendered the rats more resistant to
myocardial infarction; in other words, the size
of the infarct was significantly reduced in rats
fed the anthocyanin-rich diet”.

The quantity of absorbed anthocyanins is important
too. Maria Benedetta Donati, scientific coordinator
of the Research Laboratories of Campobasso, argues
that “the rats fed the anthocyanin- rich diet received
about 13-fold more anthocyanins than most people
following a standard Western-type diet, where the
daily consumption of flavonoids is relatively low
and the average intake of anthocyanins is estimated
to be only 12 mg per day”.

The Authors turned their attention on an alkaline diet
stressing the crucial difference between this kind
of diet and the so called Western Diet, that is rich
in fats and poor in fibres. “The anthocyanins content
of the traditional Mediterranean diet is much higher
than that of the Western Diet, which might explain
why the Mediterranean diet is cardioprotective” says
Michel de Lorgeril, cardiologist, head of the Grenoble
group.

Dr. Robert O. Young, a research scientist from the
pH Miracle Living Center, states, "the best source
of the acid buffering-alkalizing proanthocyanadins
is from green fruits and veggies. Eating 9 to 12
servings of green fruits and veggies every day will
help to provide the protective proanthocyanadins
needed to buffer the dietary and metabolic acids
that can lead to heart dis-ease and cancerous
conditions."