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' Their research demonstrated that, in the presence of OPC, much less cholesterol was deposited on the elastin tissue in the vascular wall than if OPC were absent. stances exercise activities that lower the Cholesterol level..." In 1984, J. Wegrowski and his colleagues determined that OPC does even more than just lower the cholesterol level. Their research demonstrated that, in the presence of OPC, much less cholesterol was deposited on the elastin tissue in the vascular walt than if OPC were absent. OPC thereforé keeps cholesterol deposits from forming in the vascular wall, and hence fights the’ process of atherogenesis. The cholesterol remains present in free form and can, in the instance of excess, be eliminated by the body. forced. Say, you have a haemorrhage. In the morning you brush your teeth and discover that your gums are bleeding. Or, you notice a speck of blood on the cornea of the eye. Or, at night you feel tired, your calves are swollen, you notice oedemas, etc. In that case, you're suffering from vascular fragility, and OPC fights all these pathological mechanisms. It even goes one step further. In the human body, everything is 'vascularised’. Each and every cell needs to be nourished and supplied with oxygen. Well, what is'in charge of this nourishment and enabling every cell to breathe? Ultimately, this is a task for the capillary vessels. They sare the emigsaries that go to each cell. The plumbing has to be in good shape. If there is a leak...of course, you know that leaks can be extremely dangerous, for example in the brain. I don't need to draw you a picture to to make you understand what a cerebral haem- orrhage is." DOCTORS CONFIRM SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE Even though OPT had been ‘cornered’ as a vasoprotector, med- ical doctors prescribing it wrote to Masquelier about other positive side-effects. He recalls, “I've often had doctors writing to me: 1 have prescribed OPC to my patients because they suffer from vas- cular fragility, because their legs are heavy, because they're bleed- ing, etc. But when I have laboratory tests done, I find that their cholesterol levels have gone down.’ So, based on their experi- ences, some general practitioners have already been suggesting to me that OPC be used for other purposes than the treatment of vas- cular fragility. It seems that the influence of OPC goes beyond the domain of the vascular wall and that it does this in cooperation with vitamin C." : . CHOLESTEROL In 1957, A. Fay Morgan reported that animals that were admin- ' istered wine appeared to be protected from a diet rich. in choles- terol. The total amount of lipids in the blood and organs was lower than that of a control group of animals that were living on ’ bread and water. A third group was exposed to a solution of alco- hol dissolved in water, such as to check the results of the wine group. If alcohol and water didn't give the same results as wine, then it would be obvious that something other than alcohol did the trick. The alcohol-plus-water group did have a higher cholesterol and lipid level than the wine group. The conclusion was, there- fore, that alcohol in wine couldn't be the cholesterol-restraining factor. When Masquelier learned about this research, he naturally assumed immediately that the OPC in wine was responsible for the protection against excess cholesterol. His assumption was confirmed in 1966 when the German E. Merck company regis- tered a patent describing OPC as cholesterol-regulating sub- stances, “In particular," the Merck researchers wrote, "these sub- CO a _ DECEMBER 1995 - JANUARY 1996" “ eee ee —_———-—_, . . 8 : NeAOS © 47