The very picture of health: OPCs

How flavonoid plant colors help paint a rosy portrait of health, indeed

I credit the Canadians with exposing me to the healthful benefits of pine, specifically pine bark.

Like many kids, my friends and I had often played with pine needles; we used them as wildcrafted toothpicks, chewed them for a change of flavor, gathered them to make dry floors for "forts" and hideouts in our patch of woods, and delighted in the quick crackle and spark that a handful of dried pine needles would make in a campfire.

A bitter-sweet memory

It was in Canada, though, that I first sampled pine bark as a beverage. Although I can't today recall its name, a clear, carbonated drink brewed from the bark of a maritime pine species was all the rage at the Montreal Expo some decades ago (the year 1967, I believe). Purported to be delicious, refreshing, and healthful, it was served in big, clear, icy-cold glasses designed, I am sure, to make the beverage irresistible on a hot summer day.

I ordered a glass, took a big gulp ... and found my mouth uncontrollably puckered up! It tasted like liquid pine sap -- bitter, pungent, and, sadly, not at all the delicious flavor I had expected. While that experience turned me off to the notion of ingesting pine bark, at least in beverage form, my work as a naturopathic physician has taught me to reconsider the medicinal value of this admirable' tree.

The history of pine bark & flavonoids

Our Canadian neighbors were quite right about the medicinal properties of pine bark; natives had been using it for centuries as a medicinal tea. During the 1500s, French explorer, Jacques Cartier, was introduced to pine bark tea, and found that consuming it reduced the symptoms of scurvy. As most people know, scurvy is a deficiency disease, resulting from a lack of vitamin C. Early explorers, particularly sailors, often suffered with scurvy because their long journeys did not allow them to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. According to history, Cartier and his crew found that drinking pine bark tea reduced their scurvy-related symptoms of weakness, joint pain, muscle aches, and bruising.

The biochemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgi, became famous for his pioneer work with flavonoids and vitamin C -- winning the Nobel Prize for his work in 1937. Szent-Gyorgi worked with vitamin C extracted from lemons. Michael Murray, N.D., author of the Encyclopedia of Nutritional Supplements, explains how Szent-Gyorgi discovered flavonoids after helping a friend who suffered with bleeding gums. The story goes that when Szent-Gyorgi gave his friend a rudimentary extract of vitamin C, the bleeding gums improved. When he tried a more pure extract, the bleeding was less well controlled. From this process, the scientist understood that it was not the vitamin C but something else in lemon extract that was curative.

He then went on to isolate flavonoids, a group of compounds he called "vitamin P," because of its ability to decrease the permeability of blood vessels.

We now know that there are over 4,000 flavonoid compounds. Flavonoids give fruits and flowers their colors, and they bestow a variety of health benefits to those who consume them. Pine bark and grapes are high in flavonoids, particularly in a flavonoid group known as proanthocyanidins, or more specifically, oligomeric proanthocyandins (OPCs). Other sources of OPCs include dark colored fruit, such as blueberries, blackberries, cherries, and purple grapes.

OPCs are one of the most desirable groups of plant pigments, because they offer protection against some very serious, life-threatening diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, as well as conditions such as inflammation, allergy, and retinal degeneration. One of the most noted properties of OPCs is as a free-radical scavenger -- a seek-and-destroy missionary protecting our health.

Free radicals and aging

Free radicals are molecules which occur during normal body processing. They are highly reactive because they contain an unpaired electron that wants, and seeks, to be paired. In attempting to join up with certain molecules, free radicals grab electrons from other molecules, destroying body components and, ultimately, causing cellular damage and disease. Scientists speculate that free-radical damage may be the initiating factor in many cancers and in heart disease. Free-radical damage is also known as "oxidative" damage, because it is naturally fed by oxygen (or "oxidants"). Oxidative damage is one key factor in the biological process known as aging.

In contrast to free radicals, antioxidants, as their name implies, protect against this oxidative damage. Antioxidants slow down the oxidative process, reducing free-radical damage, and possibly slowing the aging process. Vitamin C, the carotenoids (e.g., beta- and alpha-carotene), vitamin E, and selenium are common, time-tested antioxidants. Flavonoids, and among them OPCs, are also powerful antioxidants.

The best targets for OPCs' mission of health protection

Heart disease.