What is Maritime Pine Bark Extract ?
The History: If you have read the pycnogenol literature you will know story about the Quebec Indians of eastern Canada who advised members of Jacques Cartier’s expedition in December 1534 to boil up a tea of the bark and the leaves of a pine tree native to the area, to cure scurvy. At that time Cartier’s vessel was trapped in the ice and he had lost 25 of his original 110 man crew to Scurvy with a further 50 so ill that he expected them to die shortly. Of the remainder, only 3 men were unaffected by the disease. Within a week of feeding this tea to his men, they had recovered sufficiently to return to the duties, and they continued to improve thereafter. During the 1960’s a French professor researched the properties of the flavonoids found in many species of Pine Bark as well as in Grape Skins and the shells of various nuts and found that the richest source of the most bio-available and bio-active flavonoids were to be found in an extract of the Pinus Pinaster or Maritime Pine. In 1987
