ResveratrolConsumer
avert online
consumer fraud
ResveratrolQuiz
test your knowledge
New E-Book
How the world got lost on
the road to an anti-aging pill
Subscribe to our newsletter to receive email notifications when new articles are posted.
January 30, 2011: by Bill Sardi
While it is true that supplemental resveratrol lacks human studies regarding heart health, it appears modern medicine is dragging its feet here. Human studies should have ensued by now. A review at the NIH Clinical Trials website reveals none appear to be even in the planning stages.
The big problem is that the primary end point is cardiac death and there is no ethical way to rapidly test a high-risk group against plain placebo. Almost every adult with heart disease is taking vitamins or medications that may interfere with the results, particularly because resveratrol influences cytochrome P450 liver enzymes and may require dosage adjustment of cardiac drugs in use.(1) Also results are years away and thousands of subjects would have to be tested for a period of up to 5-years to obtain conclusive coronary artery disease mortality data.
It may be easier for modern medicine to retrospectively analyze mortality data among resveratrol pills users like aspirin was first studied than to launch a prospective study. To do that, cardiologists would have to start identifying patients already taking resveratrol pills. But unlike aspirin which generally is provided in two standard doses (81 mg and 325 mg), resveratrol pills come in a wide dosage range (20-1000 mg), making analysis difficult.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
January 24, 2011: by Bill Sardi
A large question looms for longevity seekers. Is there anything short of a calorie-restricted diet that has conclusively been shown to produce longevity? That question can’t be practically answered in humans because a decades-long study would have to be conducted.
For background, a limited-calorie diet, in human terms about one meal a day, has been shown to nearly double the lifespan of most living organisms ranging from fruit flies, roundworms and mice, and there is promising data on monkeys now. But obviously, the Calorie Restriction Society has only a few hundred gaunt-looking members. Food deprivation is not going to be a popular way of living longer.
The pursuit of a molecular mimic of calorie restriction has been fervent. Three molecules have risen to the drawing board stage: rapamycin, an anti-fungal/antibiotic drug; metformin, an anti-diabetic drug; and resveratrol, a red wine molecule.
The idea is to find a small molecule that would enter cellular machinery and tickle the same genes as a calorie-restricted diet.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
January 9, 2011: by ResveratrolNews
Chennai, India (January 9, 2011) – While age-related vision loss of catastrophic proportions is predicted in coming decades, rising from 17 million patients today to 55 million by the year 2050, it’s possible this catastrophe could be averted and lost vision even restored using molecular medicine.
These are the words of Stuart Richer, OD, PhD, speaking at the 10th annual meeting and International Conference on Recent Trends in Therapeutic Advancement of Free Radical Science, in Chennai, India today.
Dr. Richer says modern medicine is just beginning to evaluate data from the first cases where conventional medical and surgical efforts to restore lost vision had been exhausted and a molecular medicine approach was employed under compassionate use. Even other nutritional therapies including antioxidants were ineffective. Molecular medicine, where small molecules are utilized that can pass through the blood-retinal barrier and which can influence the genetic machinery inside living cells, appears to be very promising, says Dr. Richer.
Posted in Resveratrol ; 2 Comments »
December 31, 2010: by Bill Sardi
It was a year Americans learned why “their genes are not their biological destiny.”
It was the year Americans began to be sales pitched on the idea of using home test kits to identify gene derived maladies.
It was a year when biologists continued to point in all directions, claiming there are 300 theories of why humans age and they still don’t have any idea which one is correct.
It was the year when the promise of a red wine resveratrol anti-aging pill was “short lived.” But did this pill fizzle, or was it being swept under the rug?
It was the year of the downfall of the Sirtuin1 gene as the “holy grail” of anti-aging.
It was the year telomeres — those end caps on chromosomes — intrigued many and early adaptors excitedly searched for telomere lengthening agents — yet telomeres may just be another misdirection. Maybe longevity seekers ought to be looking at molecules that prevent double-strand DNA breaks rather than telomere lengtheners.
It was a year where mTOR inhibitor drugs (whatever they are) began to be mentioned in place of resveratrol as an anti-aging pill. Yet the mTOR inhibitor drug rapamycin is fraught with side effects and could never be used in a healthy population.
It was a year when microRNA began to be recognized as the predominant way our genes are switched on and off.
It was a year when funding for anti-aging technologies began to dry up and the prospect of an anti-aging pill began to fade.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
December 19, 2010: by Bill Sardi
A professor of medicine says “aspirin is, by a long way, the most amazing drug in the world.” He was responding to a recent study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, which found the 20-year risk of death was reduced by about 10 percent for prostate cancer, 30 percent for lung cancer, 40 percent for colorectal or bowel cancer and 60 percent for esophageal cancer among those taking aspirin.
Aspirin protected against gastrointestinal cancer the most, particularly for cancer in the upper versus the lower gastric tract. When data from eight studies were pooled, researchers found that cancer deaths among those who took aspirin in doses as low as 75 milligrams a day were 34 percent lower after five years. There was no increase in benefit at doses of aspirin greater than 75 mg daily.
Furthermore, while there has been hesitancy to use aspirin because of bleeding gastric ulcers offsets its ability to prevent strokes and heart attack, now doctors say “the reductions in deaths due to several common cancers will now alter this balance for many people.”
One doctor suggests healthy people could start taking a small 75 mg dose of aspirin every day from the age of about 40 or 45 and continue doing so until they reached around 70 to 75, when the risk of the aspirin causing stomach bleeding rises.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
December 18, 2010: by Bill Sardi
We no longer live in an age of genetic doom — that the sequence of nucleotides on the DNA ladder that we inherited from our forefathers dictates our biological future. Rather we live in an age of epigenetic enlightenment. Our genes can be switched on and off, that is, their ability to produce proteins (called gene expression) can be influenced by diet, temperature, radiation exposure, etc. This is called epigenetics.
In this regard, biologists know that small molecules can enter cellular machinery and alter gene expression and thus produce a pattern of gene activity that produces healthy longevity.
To the surprise of geneticists, there are only 25,000 human genes, with half of these being redundant or inactive genes, which suggests the genome (library of genes) is manipulatable.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
December 15, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Apple polyphenols extend life in roundworms similar to resveratrol, which points to small molecules that control iron and copper as exerting these life-prolonging effects. Resveratrol is solely a copper chelator but also controls iron indirectly. This report further substantiates the over-mineralization theory of aging.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
December 12, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Since 2003 when a Harvard researcher extolled the SIRTUIN1 gene as the holy grail of anti-aging, this gene has only diminished in its stature. Out of a library of about 25,000 human genes, about 832 are believed to be involved in producing longevity as evidence in calorie-restricted animals whose lifespan is approximately doubled. Longevity involves many genes, not a sole gene target.
Resveratrol, the red wine molecule, which has been claimed to stimulate the SIRTUIN1 gene to produce proteins, has been shown to protect brain cells in models of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
December 1, 2010: by ResveratrolNews
Human and Experimental Toxicology, 29(12) 1016–1017
Dipak K Das
Cardiovascular Research Center, University of Connecticut, Farmington, CT, USA
Resveratrol, a grape skin and red wine-derived polyphenolic phytoalexin, exhibits hormetic action delivering numerous health benefits at lower doses while being detrimental at higher doses. Epidemiologic and clinical trials need to be based on the clear understanding of hormetic health benefits of resveratrol.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »
November 29, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Harvard scientists say they have successfully restored youthfulness to old mice by re-activating telomerase in telomerase-deficient mice (telomerase is the enzyme that repairs the end-caps of chromosomes known as telomeres). In just one month of telomerase therapy “aged, mice, equivalent to 80-year-old humans, and were about to pass away,” were restored to “the physiological equivalent of young adults.” The report emanates from Nature Magazine today.
As spectacular as this laboratory study is, the question remains whether an experiment where mice are genetically bred to age prematurely applies to human aging. At the genetic level, human aging appears to largely involve epigenetics (switching of the TERT gene), not gene mutation as in the case of these mutated laboratory mice.
However, there are remarkable findings in this report that go overlooked. The youthful changes in these mice (their shrinking brains and sperm-producing glands got bigger, and their sense of smell returned) correlated with the lengthening of telomeres. These changes were obviously produced via epigenetic changes that countered inbred (mutational) factors. That should have been the real headline. Man’s biological destiny may not be permanently locked in his genes.
Posted in Resveratrol ; No Comments »