Tag Archives: Resveratrol

Resveratrol

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is a member of a group of plant compounds called polyphenols. These compounds are thought to have antioxidant properties, protecting the body against the kind of damage linked to increased risk for conditions such as cancer and heart disease. Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes, but other sources include peanuts and berries.

Because resveratrol is thought to have so many health benefits, it’s not surprising that a number of manufacturers have tried to capitalize by selling resveratrol supplements. Most resveratrol capsules sold in the U.S. contain extracts from the Japanese and Chinese knotweed plant Polygonum cuspidatum. Other resveratrol supplements are made from red wine or red grape extracts.

Ads touting resveratrol supplements on the Internet promise purchasers everything from weight loss to a healthier, longer life. The question is, do resveratrol supplements really deliver on those promises, or are they nothing more than marketing hype?

Benefits of Resveratrol

Resveratrol has gained a lot of attention for its reported antiaging and disease-combating benefits. Early research, mostly done in test tubes and in animals, suggests that resveratrol might help protect the body against a number of diseases, including:

Heart disease. Resveratrol helps reduce inflammation, prevents the oxidation of LDL “bad” cholesterol, and makes it more difficult for platelets to stick together and form the clots that can lead to a heart attack.

Cancer. Resveratrol is thought to limit the spread of cancer cells and trigger the process of cancer cell death (apoptosis).

Alzheimer’s disease. Resveratrol may protect nerve cells from damage and the buildup of plaque that can lead to Alzheimer’s.

Diabetes . Resveratrol helps prevent insulin resistance, a condition in which the body becomes less sensitive to the effects of the blood sugar-lowering hormone, insulin. Insulin resistance is a precursor to diabetes.

Rodent studies suggest that resveratrol might even help against some of the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle and lead to increased longevity. Resveratrol-treated mice fed a high-calorie diet lived longer than similarly fed mice not given resveratrol. Resveratrol protected mice fed a high-calorie diet from obesity-related health problems by mimicking the effects of caloric restriction.

Resveratrol has also been linked to prevention of age-related problems such as heart disease and insulin resistance. Researchers believe that resveratrol activates the SIRT1 gene, a biological mechanism that seems to protect the body against the harmful effects of obesity and the diseases of aging.

Side Effects

Because there have been very few studies conducted on resveratrol in humans, doctors still can’t confirm any benefits, and they don’t know what effects these supplements might have on people over the long term. So far, studies have not discovered any severe side effects, even when resveratrol is taken in large doses. However, resveratrol supplements might interact with blood thinners such as warfarin (Coumadin), and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as aspirin and ibuprofen, increasing the risk for bleeding.

Like other supplements, resveratrol isn’t regulated by the FDA, so it’s difficult for consumers to know exactly what they’re getting when they buy a bottle, or whether the product is actually effective. There also isn’t any specific dosage recommendation, and dosages can vary from supplement to supplement.

The dosages in most resveratrol supplements are typically far lower than the amounts that have been shown beneficial in research studies. Most supplements contain 250 to 500 milligrams of resveratrol. To get the equivalent dose used in some animal studies, people would have to consume 2 grams of resveratrol (2,000 milligrams) or more a day.

The bottom line: Until more high-quality research is available, experts say they can’t recommend resveratrol supplements for antiaging or disease prevention.

 

Resveratrol

Anti Aging benefits of Resveratrol

After some debate, Harvard Medical School researchers are saying they have confirmed that compound resveratrol that’s found in red wine does provide anti-aging benefits.

The study, which was published on March 8 in Science, shows that resveratrol stimulates production of SIRT1, a serum that blocks diseases by speeding up the cell’s energy production centers known as mitrochondria.

Researchers have also figured out which gene allows resveratrol to produce SIRT1, and believe that some drugs currently in clinical trials may be able to provide the same anti-aging benefits as well.

“In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has never been a drug that binds to a protein to make it run faster in the way that resveratrol activates SIRT1,” senior author David Sinclair, Harvard Medical School professor of genetics, said in a press release. “Almost all drugs either slow or block them.”

Resveratrol is a naturally-occuring polyphenols antioxidant that is found in some plant products like grapes and cocoa. It is categorized as a phytoalexin, an antimicrobial compound that is produced by plants to protect them from rough environments like excessive ultraviolet light, infections and climate changes.

Resveratrol has been linked to protection against obesity and diabetes, a reduced risk for blood clotting and a way to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol, due to the compound’s ability to dilate blood vessels, increase nitric oxide and block the stickiness of platelets. However, some research came into question when Dr. Dipak K. Das, director of the cardiovascular research center at the University of Connecticut who led several reseveratrol studies, was accused of making up results in January 2013.

There was also a controversy behind whether SIRT1’s production was actually influenced by resveratrol. Earlier studies have used a man-made chemical group which glowed brighter the more SIRT1 activity went up. Without this chemical, the experiments didn’t work. Some scientists believed that because of this, it meant that SIRT1’s activity was only a laboratory construct and didn’t exist in nature.

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“We had six years of work telling us that this was most definitely not an artifact,” Sinclair, who initially published a study in 2006 linking resveratrol to SIRT1 and longevity in mice using that man-made chemical, said. “Still, we needed to figure out precisely how resveratrol works. The answer was extremely elegant.”

To prove that there was a link between resveratrol and SIRT1, scientists discovered that the man-made chemical was actually close to three amino acids that were naturally found in cells, one of which is tryptophan, the chemical thought to make people drowsy after eating turkey. Instead of using the florescent chemical, researchers used a tryptophan residue in a test tube to see if it would create more SIRT1, which it did.

Then, Sinclair and his team looked at 2,000 mutants of the gene responsible for SIRT1 to find out how resveratrol worked, and found one mutation that stopped resveratrol’s effects by swapping out one of the 747 amino acid residues.

After they found where this mutation was found on SIRT1-creating gene and how to control it, researchers replaced the normal SIRT1 gene in manufactured muscle and skin cells with the one that stopped resveratrol’s effect. They then introduced resveratrol and some other medications in clinical trials. Resveratrol and some of the medications were able to speed up mitrochondria by activating more SIRT1 in normal cells, but the mutated cells were unaffected by the substances.

“This was the killer experiment,” said Sinclair. “There is no rational alternative explanation other than resveratrol directly activates SIRT1 in cells. Now that we know the exact location on SIRT1 where and how resveratrol works, we can engineer even better molecules that more precisely and effectively trigger the effects of resveratrol.”

It is important to note that Sinclair is a co-founder and scientific advisor of Sirtris, a GlaxoSmithKline company. Sirtris currently has a number of sirtuin (SIRT1)-activating compounds in clinical trials.

Sinclair told the Telegraph in a separate interview that he wants to continue the studies to see if reveratrol can help people who are already really healthy.

“Things there are also looking promising. We’re finding that ageing isn’t the irreversible affliction that we thought it was,” he commented. “Some of us could live to 150, but we won’t get there without more research.”

Many agree that the information is promising.

“This is not weak evidence at this point,” Leonard Guarente, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Sirtris scientific advisory board member, added to the Los Angeles Times.”You would really bet the ranch on this one.”

“It might bring together the different views so we can move forward,” Brian Kennedy, president and chief executive of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., added in a press release. Kennedy previously questioned the results of studies using resveratrol and yeast. “This is how science works.”