Have you heard of Resveratrol before?

“The remarkable message is that exquisitely low daily doses of resveratrol (between 14 and 140 mg in a 160 pound human) will suffice to exert potent cancer chemopreventive efficacy and pharmacodynamic activity. These animal studies render resveratrol one of the most potent diet-derived chemopreventive dietary polyphenols ever described.”

-- Andreas J, Gescher and William P Steward, Department of Oncology, Leicester, United Kingdom, in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 2003.

Recently, a nutrient found in red wine called resveratrol has been shown to have positive effect on postponing human aging and lengthening the life span. First I have tried it a couple of years ago, in the year 2005. At that time not many people have ever heard of red wine extract called Resveratrol or has been familiar with it and its effects.

Nowadays it is more commonly found health food supplement in many pharmacies and health food supplement stores. When I tried it for the first time I had no idea what this is. I found it on ebay as a natural remedy for high blood pressure lowering supplement. Not that I really needed it, but in my colleague years I was kind of obsessed with healthy life, healthy food, healthy food supplements, I am sure you realised that I was obsessed with the word 'healthy'. 'No problem with that!', you would say. I agree, but I really didn't know what I was eating. Stay with me and I'll show you all important information you need to know about resveratrol.

Life Extension

In September 2003, Howitz and Sinclair discovered that a substance in red wine might explain the anti aging and life-extending powers attributed to the beverage. This discovery has got something to do with the class of genes called Sirtuins, often called as our longetivity genes. In mammals, one of these genes is reffered to as SIRT-1 and if you are lucky enough, your SIRT-1 gene is substantially activated. This is why some people are claiming they have never eaten healthy food or any kind of healthy additions to their unhealthy diet, they smoked and drinked a lot and still make it to very old age. In case you're one of these fortunate people you can stop reading this context as you don't really need to consume any life extension supplements. However, most of us are not that lucky and to help our bodies to start ageing gracefully, we should do something about it.

Believe it or not resveratrol can activate our sleepy gene. I am not going to explain to you the scientific facts nor the overall process how to wake up your longetivity genes as I am not a scientist. For all the 'detectives' I marked a few links to more scientistic web pages above it the text. Also at the bottom of the page you can find a list of references.

Resveratrol Benefits

• Blocks cancer initiation, promotion and progression
• Possible Eye Diseases Cure
• Promotes Clear Thinking
• It has been demonstrated to cleanse the liver
• Inhibits the accumulation of beta amyloid playue in the brain
• Protects the sense of hearing
• Lowers cholesterol level
• Helps blunt the effects of poor health habits (smoking, food and alcohol overconsuming)
• Anti-aging effects

Resveratrol Foods

Resveratrol Researches

Cancer chemopreventive activity of resveratrol, a natural product derived from grapes

A study on activity of resveratrol and it's chemopreventive effects prepared by Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, Unuiversity of Illinois at Chicago, USA showed the following:

''Resveratrol, a phytoalexin found in grapes and other food products, was purified and shown to have cancer chemopreventive activity in assays representing three major stages of carcinogenesis. Resveratrol was found to act as an antioxidant and antimutagen and to induce phase II drug-metabolizing enzymes (anti-initiation activity); it mediated anti-inflammatory effects and inhibited cyclooxygenase and hydroperoxidase functions (antipromotion activity); and it induced human promyelocytic leukemia cell differentiation (antiprogression activity). In addition, it inhibited the development of preneoplastic lesions in carcinogen-treated mouse mammary glands in culture and inhibited tumorigenesis in a mouse skin cancer model. These data suggest that resveratrol, a common constituent of the human diet, merits investigation as a potential cancer chemopreventive agent in humans.''

SIRT1 as a potential therapeutic target for treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

A study on activity of resveratrol and fatty liver disease treatment prepared by Department of Gastroenterology, S. B. Goztepe Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey showed the following:

Sirtuins are members of the silent information regulator 2 (Sir2) family, a group of Class III histone/protein deacetylases. There are 7 different sirtuins in mammals (SIRT1-7), of which SIRT1 is the best known and most studied. SIRT1 is responsible for the regulation of protein activation by means of deacetylating a variety of proteins that play important roles in the pathophysiology of metabolic diseases. Recently, it has been shown that SIRT1 plays key roles in the regulation of lipid and glucose homeostasis, control of insulin secretion and sensitivity, antiinflammatory effects, control of oxidative stress and the improvements in endothelial function that result due to increased mitochondrial biogenesis and β-oxidation capacity. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is currently the most common liver disease, and it has been accepted as the hepatic component of metabolic syndrome. Recent studies have shown that SIRT expression in the liver is significantly decreased in an NAFLD model of rats fed a high-fat diet, and moderate SIRT1 overexpression protects mice from developing NAFLD. In addition to resveratrol, a natural SIRT1 activator, small-molecule pharmacologic SIRT1 activators have positive effects on metabolic diseases. These effects are particularly promising in the case of diabetes mellitus, for which phase studies are currently being performed. With this information, we hypothesized that the pharmacologic activation of SIRT1, which has been implicated in the pathogenesis of NAFLD, will be a potential therapeutic target for treating NAFLD. In this paper, we review the metabolic effects of SIRT1 and its association with the pathophysiology of NAFLD.

The French Paradox

The French consume a fairly high fat/cholesterol diet yet have the most centenarians per capita of any country in the world. Considering the life-prolonging effect of red wine, it is believed that the secret ingredient found in red wine is the reason for French higher life expectancy rate.

Related articles

References and Footnotes:

1)Primal body, primal mind, Nora T. Gedgaudas, CNS, CNT, 2009.

2)The Case For Resveratrol, Why Aren't More Americans Taking Resveratrol Pills?, 2011

3)Cancer chemopreventive activity of resveratrol, a natural product derived from grapes, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8985016

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