From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Concord grape juice -blood thinner?
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <34450451.B78@buncombe.main.nc.us> Michael Forrest
<mforrest@buncombe.main.nc.us> writes:

>I've read that it thins the lymph fluid. It's good for problems of
>congestion. I knew a woman who was on her deathbed with lung congestion
>and at my suggestion started eating lots of grapes and rapidly got better
>and well again.


A not impossible story.

Grape juice acts on platelets to make them less sticky.  Rather than
thin lymph fluid, and edema fluid, bioflavonoids (as in grapes) cause
them to be absorbed, in part by making macrophages resorb the protein
in these fluids, so that the salt and water can be transported out of
the tissues.

Bioflavonoids are used in many edema states routinely in Europe.  They
take a while (months) to work, but they do work.

                                        Steve Harris, M.D.