Jacques Masquelier

Many people refer to Professor Masquelier as Jacques Masquelier. Probably the mistake is caused by the fact that Jacques sounds more French, but the French scientist referred to in this article was called Jack Arthur Masquelier.

Jack Masquelier was a French scientist. In July 1948 he published his doctoral thesis based on his successful isolation and chemical description of the phytonutrient we know today as oligomeric proanthocyanidins or OPCs. That same year he filed a patent for the industrial method of producing the first botanical product based on OPCs.

Based on Masquelier's role in the research and development of OPCs-products, their isolation, identification and therapeutic and dietary applications, two other botanical products followed. In the 1960s, a botanical medicine based on OPCs isolated from Pinus maritima bark was produced, followed ten years later by another OPCs-based medicinal product manufactured from Vitis vinifera seeds. These medicinal products are still sold in France today. During the 1980s these complex but well characterized phytonutrients were introduced on the natural products market and are now sold around the world as dietary supplements.

The postwar period, when Masquelier began his research, was marked by a surge in interest in flavanols, the group of bioactives to which proanthocyandins belong. In 1951, Australian scientist W.G.C. Forsyth first isolated flavonols from fresh coco-beans. In that same year, using Masquelier's OPCs, the English phytochemist E.C. Bate-Smith, working at Cambridge (UK), developed and first described a coloration method to detect the presence of proanthocyanidins in plant materials.

Masquelier's scientific work was important in the early development of two areas of science: phytochemistry and human health. Finding that the nomenclature used in the fields of phytochemistry and botany could easily lead to confusion and imprecision when applied in the field of dietary and pharmaceutical products, Masquelier, together with his lifetime friend and colleague Dr. Jean Michaud, focused on, and succeeded in the characterisation of OPCs-based products in conformity with nutritional and pharmaceutical standards, thus fitting for the field of human health.

Through his scientific investigation Masquelier revealed the many health benefits of OPCs. The key early finding of Masquelier was that OPCs strengthen and protect blood vessels and vascular function, so essential for the function of every organ in the body. This set in motion a series of independent clinical studies by several other scientists that sustained his findings and provided conclusive support for the use of Masquelier's OPCs-compounds in the French vasculo-protective medicines.

In 1985, Masquelier was able to further explain the intense and instant positive effects that OPCs have on the human body when he discovered that OPCs neutralize free radicals, the common cause of seemingly unrelated degenerative conditions and early onset of age-associated changes in the body. He found that OPCs are powerful antioxidants and are unique in their ability to work in both aqueous and lipid phase to provide superior antioxidant support.

Masquelier's discoveries have influenced human health worldwide, and have gained significance in this era when life expectancy has increased while accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in cardiovascular and other degenerative diseases.