Red Wine, Resveratrol & the Gut
Red Wine, Resveratrol & the Gut
Written by: Marisol Teijeiro N.D. (inactive)
Medically reviewed by: Victoria Williams R.H.N.
Est. reading time: 10 minutes.
What is Resveratol?
Did you know that the pinot noir grape is so weak that it actually has to produce a fungus on its skin in order to survive? So, the problem with drinking red wine isn’t necessarily alcohol, but the fungus that grows on the skin of the grape itself. It is a product of fermentation that gets into the body and upsets the microbiome.
Who doesn’t love to have a nice relaxing glass of red wine after a long day? And sure, it’s alcohol, but it’s okay because red wine is good for you, right? Well, my friends, this may be true (in small doses!) because even though NO amount of alcohol is good for you, red wine pleads a case because it contains the powerful antioxidant, resveratrol.
Resveratrol does many wonderful things for the body, specifically in the gut, which makes it an excellent nutrient for people with digestive conditions.
I wanted to talk about resveratrol because, well hey, everyone loves a good glass of red wine, right? One of the first questions you probably have before starting a cleanse is, “Really?? Do I have to give up red wine??” And the answer is yes, ideally
Although, I’ve recently discovered a way to prepare it that makes it okay to enjoy on a cleanse, albeit in very minute dosages, for a therapeutic effect. I’ll spill the beans on how exactly to do this later on in this post.
Resveratrol is a plant compound that acts as a powerful antioxidant in our bodies. It’s not only found in grapes and red wine, but also in smaller amounts in blueberries, tomatoes, peanuts, dark chocolate, and apples.
Resveratrol Concentration in Grapes
The grape is an interesting fruit with the pinot noir grape being the ‘weakest’ grape that grows well in Oregon, Italy, and France (legendary here!), yet it has the highest antioxidant content, specifically resveratrol1. Pinot noir is thought to be the healthiest of red wines.
Pinot Noir
Believe it or not, the weaker the grape, the stronger the antioxidant. In red wine, it’s pinot noir grapes. In terms of juice, it would be the Concord grape. They actually have one of the highest nutritional profiles but they are incredibly sweet too (which means high in sugar).
The way grapes mix their sugar and antioxidants makes our food choices a bit tricky. They’re super healthy, which is great. But it also means we need to be careful about how much we eat to find the right balance. So, when you’re grabbing that glass of red wine or a serving of grape juice, just keep in mind this mix of good stuff and things to be cautious about. It can help you make smarter and more balanced decisions for your diet.
Concord Grape Diet
Have you ever heard of the old grape diet? Where you basically eat nothing but grapes for three days…
Stay with me, as there actually might be something to this. When reading Genesis (the first chapter of the Bible), and in the biblical days to cleanse, they would basically not consume anything for the first 3 days. So you could do a grape juice fast for the first 3 days, along with water and green tea to help clean up your system (and also take in a ton of powerful antioxidants).
What Does Resveratrol Do?
Resveratrol may help women lose weight and maintain healthy estrogen levels2 3. Estrogen dominance is a problem that can lead to gain weight, which can cause your body to produce more estrogen.
It basically becomes a a vicious cycle of gaining weight and having high estrogen, which causes symptoms like breast tenderness, moodiness, depression, and anxiety. Causing you to feel like you’re all over the map… Can you relate? It is not a fun condition to be stuck in and resveratrol may be helpful with these symptoms.
Resveratrol in the Gut
So, what does it do for the gut?
Flavonoids are very important in keeping the gut mucosal membrane lining healthy4.
If the gut lining isn’t strong and healthy, it weakens the barrier, making it hard for the gut to protect the body from outside food. It’s crucial for the gut barrier to stay strong for optimal functioning.
Maintaining a Healthy Gut Lining
So, we need to work on strategies to help keep this barrier closed and strong, agreed? What closes the barrier most profoundly? Relaxation! That’s right, NO STRESS! When you are stressed, your body is in the sympathetic state, and cortisol is pumping. In this state, your gut mucosal membrane lining is weakened, or “leaky” as it is often called.
Leaky Gut was a huge term in the 80s and 90s and people still use it – also known as leaky gut syndrome. Now, a leaky gut is, in a sense, a stressed out person who has holes in their intestines, meaning their barrier is no longer working. .
They’ve lost the integrity of the barrier, and things that are not supposed to get through, do, causing things to leak through that are not in the size they should be. When this happens, the body can’t recognize them which causes irritation and allergies.
Stool Transit Time
Did you know that stool transit time can actually dictate the number of allergies you have? The less that you go, the more allergies you may have5. Interesting agreed?
The duration it takes for stool to move from the mouth to the anus (or anal transit time), is influenced by stool transit time. Understanding your transit time provides various insights into your body’s functions and conditions.
You Are What You Absorb
Now, resveratrol helps with keeping the gut lining integral. It’s actually imperative to it. In supplement formulas, I add in resveratrol all the time and I make sure people are getting it from their diet as well.
What’s even more important is that people are absorbing and digesting things well. We need to optimize the absorption capacity in our guts in order to really reap the health benefits of resveratrol in our food, drink, and supplements.
Food Hygiene
Resveratrol is awesome to get from red wine, although the bacteria and fermentation products make it not-so-great on a cleanse. So how do we get around this?
Alternatively, we can use grapes, but we need to wash them well. I’m going to teach you how to wash them to reduce the bacterial load.
Now, I don’t want to get into the hygiene hypothesis… The thing is, this isn’t something you need to do long term, just until you establish a healthier barrier and a healthy microbiome. When the microbiome is functioning well it can tolerate more bacterial load. Makes sense, right?
So, we need to give our microbiome a chance to reset itself within the body, which could take 3-6 months, a year, or even 2 years… It depends how weakened it is and it depends on how compliant you are.
To Reset Your Gut, You Have 2 Options
- You can reset it by a little wee bit at a time which takes a long time, OR…
- You go all in! Change your practice step by step for the fast win.
The second option makes more sense! Agreed?
So, in order to reset the environment, we need to clear what is coming in, allowing the body to rebalance in its own natural way. When we allow it the space to do what it needs to do – that is digest, absorb and eliminate, we support this process that much more.
My favorite tool to do this with is Castor Oil Packs.
How Do Castor Oil Packs Help You Reset Your Gut?
1. Relaxation
Parasympathetic tone, practicing the pause. How do we get more of the relaxed state as opposed to the stressed state?
Castor Oil Packs are like the escape button for your nervous system, which is more related to the pack rather than the actual oil. That’s because when the pack sits on the skin, it stimulates receptors in the skin of the nervous system.
Did you know that tactile soft-touch actually helps to support that area7. This soft, pleasurable touch also stimulates hormones, like oxytocin – the love and connection hormone, as well as dopamine8 – the pleasure hormone of the brain.
2. Inflammation & Alkalinity
Wherever there is inflammation there is acidity, so reducing inflammation increases alkalinity. The enzymes of our bodies cannot work without alkalinity. Our enzymes need proper pH to function well, and Castor Oil Packs may help support this environment and balance inflammation.
Moreover, Castor Oil has been shown to be as effective as capsaicin for pain relief (without the irritating effect)9.
3. Maintain Glutathione Levels & Support Detox Pathways
There are not many ways to get glutathione, our super important detoxifying compound. You can take glutathione supplements, but they haven’t been shown to be super effective. You can also get it from whey protein, but this is an issue for a lot of people with allergies and sensitivities. A third way to get it is from rooibos tea, green tea, or red raspberry leaf tea to improve glutathione in the gut.
Supplementation with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and magnesium can help with glutathione levels, however, most of us are already very deficient in magnesium so the body will first use the magnesium for what it needs, before converting it to glutathione. Sometimes it can be dose-limiting too, because of the potential laxative effect of magnesium.
IV and injection is another way of getting glutathione, but this requires going to a clinic every time, which isn’t very convenient, agreed?
A Castor Oil Pack worn on the liver may help with the recycling of glutathione. There was a study done on rat lenses where they put the lenses in a dish of glutathione solution, and one in a dish of Castor Oil. The glutathione levels were actually maintained BETTER in the Castor Oil solution10.
4. Support the regulation of bowels
Transit time is very important. Without a normal transit time, you may experience problems with your microbiome, allergies, and toxins recirculating in the body. Normal transit time for men is around 1.7 days, and for women it is higher at 2.3 days11.
Why is it higher for women? Women have more hormones that play a role in their transit time. If progesterone levels are low, it can contribute to a slower transit time. Castor Oil Packs are thought to help support regular movement of your bowels, which, in turn, may help your digestion transit times.
5. Break down Biofilm
Biofilm is basically a sticky coating of glycoproteins and hyaluronic acid, a matrix created by bacteria from their waste products. It’s no different than what surrounds all of the cells of our body. It’s like an extracellular matrix made for bacteria to keep them safe from evil enemies on the outside.
The only problem is that these bacteria are actually the evil enemies to us, because they are inoculating a gut that should be healthy. They’re straight up con artists, which is why I call them “conbiotics”. You see, bacteria is really good for us, and “commensal” bacteria is actually awesome!
Commensal bacteria create vitamins for us, like the ever important B vitamins, as well as L-butyrate and short-chain fatty acids which help to heal the gut lining. It’s amazing what they do for us! But unfortunately, the bad guys can create gas that basically slows our transit time down, like hydrogen disulfide and methane gas12.
For this reason, it’s super important to address our biofilm. There aren’t many natural substances that have the ability to break it down. Castor Oil is one of these natural substances, also helping to stimulate nitric oxide passageways!
And because nitric oxide is a gasotransmitter, which is basically a gaseous messenger molecule involved in signaling to open up blood vessels, it is believed to help balance inflammation. They’re calling it one of the newest anti-aging molecules. Red wine, grapes, and beets are all food sources of nitric oxide.
Did you know that you tend to go to the bathroom more often when you have higher levels of progesterone? Ladies, right before your period do you find that you are going to the bathroom more frequently? This is because your progesterone levels spike just before menstruation, causing your transit time to speed up.
Castor Oil Packs are such a simple practice that work on these 5 foundational functions…
1. Relaxation
2. Inflammation
3. Antioxidant status
4. The bowels
5. The microbiome
This supports everything, from absorbing, digesting, working well, and eliminating where it needs to.
Get your own super easy, 2-step Queen of the Thrones® Liver Castor Oil Pack.
Gut Lining and Hormones
Resveratrol basically acts like an antioxidant that helps support the gut lining, and at the same time balances out hormones. Our gut lining is very dependent on our hormones, and resveratrol helps in the detoxification of estrogen.
When you have better-balanced levels of estrogen, you will have sufficient levels of progesterone that help you go to the bathroom well and maintain a regular transit time.
Dietary Intake of Resveratrol
1. Royal Red
If you’re on any kind of cleansing diet you want to do it the smart way and pasteurize it. Pasteurization, according to Louis Pasteur, was done via a flash-fry method. So basically you boil water, add it to red wine then cool it down immediately. Plus, it’s a great way to get rid of the majority of bacteria and fermentation products that may be in red wine, causing problems for the body.
Try to avoid South America and Californian wines, because they’ve been shown to have high levels of toxicity in them. Organic wines from the European Union-Spain, Italy, France, and Pinot Noir are best. Wines from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Oregon are also good options.
How to Flash Pasteurize Red Wine:
Looking to enjoy your red wine in a healthier way? Here’s your Red Wine Recipe below!
- 1. 1 oz red wine
- 4 oz boiling water
- Throw in 5 ice cubes
- Sip and enjoy!
And there you have it, a nice cider that I like to call it the Royal Red! Another option is to add carbonated water and ice for a spritzer type drink
Grape juice is another option for dietary intake of resveratrol. As mentioned before, Concord grapes have the highest antioxidant content. With grape juice though, water it down because it’s very sweet, therefore very high in sugar!
2. Grapes
Good ‘ole grapes are also a great way to get resveratrol into your system. But, remember what we talked about in regards to the fungus that they produce to protect themselves? We need to wash it off with a handy dandy acid-cleansing wash.
How to make an Acid-Cleansing Wash
You will need:
- 1 part white vinegar
- 1/4 part hydrogen peroxide
- 5 parts water
- 1 tsp baking soda
Step 1: Put grapes into a bowl.
Step 2: Add the mixture of liquids and drop in the baking soda. (You can also do this with any dried goods like rice, grains, and legumes.) This step takes off the bacterial load and grapes are super important to do this for.
So the next time you reach for your glass of red wine, I hope you will see it in a whole new light.
Make sure to practice your Castor Oil Pack for Liver so you can help your body absorb the awesome benefits of resveratrol, and use these food hygiene tricks to limit the amount of bacterial load coming into your beautiful temple.
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Click here for references
1. Lukas Snopek 1 ID , Jiri Mlcek 1,*, Lenka Sochorova 2 , Mojmir Baron 2 , Irena Hlavacova 1 , Tunde Jurikova 3 ID , Rene Kizek 4 , Eva Sedlackova 1 and Jiri Sochor 2. Contribution of Red Wine Consumption to Human Health Protection. Molecules. Received: 15 May 2018; Accepted: 9 July 2018; Published: 11 July 2018 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/399f/b972ac0e63c75459c5fb11bf303f4e2677a2.pdf
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