Comprehensive Library Of Resveratrol News

Professor Ole Vang
Resveratrol 2012

The release of your (mis)information from the RESVERATROL 2012 conclave is almost laughable. I’m laughing in my tears. Sadly, so many suffer from inability of the “resveratrol community” to come to any conclusions. How many more wasted decades before the professors can come to any agreement?

While your press statements said “there is not yet scientific evidence to recommend a general intake of resveratrol for prevention of lifestyle diseases,” and “trials in humans are necessary … to be absolutely sure of positive effects in humans,” your plea for more studies is falling on deaf ears.

Modern medicine is frankly dragging its feet over the whole idea of incorporating resveratrol into any preventive or disease-modifying protocol. In the past 8 years there hasn’t been a single human trial using resveratrol for heart disease, which would have been its most obvious application. Why didn’t your group take the NIH and cardiac researchers to task over this?

Why didn’t your group come to the defense of resveratrol researcher Dipak Das, unfairly accused of scientific fraud? Will the same fate be experienced by other researchers who dare to prove resveratrol is the miraculous molecule it really is?

You know that other researchers have duplicated Dr. Das’ studies, yet your group said nothing. Das even sent rodent heart tissue samples to the NIH for microRNA analysis which corroborated his findings with western blot analysis [ PLoS One. 2010 Dec 23;5(12):e15705. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21203465 ] yet you and the research community failed to come to resveratrol’s defense. Why? You can’t be scientific wimps, can you?

This is the hard evidence you say you seek, is it not? You very well know Dr. Das’ research in the experimental heart attack model can’t be ethically duplicated in humans. It would take a 5-year longitudinal study of 50,000 adults to conclusively prove resveratrol prevents mortal heart attacks at a cost of probably $50 million. How many more will die before that evidence is forthcoming?

What harm could come of taking the modest doses that Dr. Das’ studies recommended? Given that statin drugs and baby aspirin do not prevent mortal heart attacks, what harm could come from saying animal studies are promising and adults may not be too presumptuous in starting to take resveratrol pills, especially since red wine pills don’t come with the inebriation red wine produces.

If you delay in making such a bold statement, millions may die prematurely from heart attacks, but if you get a bit ahead of the science and resveratrol fizzles as a life-preserving molecule, what harm could come of it as long as serious side effects are not produced?

You should know that at least one brand of resveratrol pill (Longevinex) has been shown in animal and human toxicity studies to be completely non-cytotoxic at high doses, whereas plain resveratrol is known to be cytotoxic in mega-doses.

Why was your group remiss in warning the public away from potentially toxic mega-doses that should probably be overseen by clinicians given high-dose resveratrol’s cancer killing properties? One of your conference’s sponsors sells mega-dose resveratrol pills that are potentially problematic.

Why was there no mention of hormesis, documented by Harvard resveratrol researcher David Sinclair himself? [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15306006 ] Hormesis by its very definition is a low-dose toxin that can activate internal antioxidant defenses. Mega-dose resveratrol negates hormesis.

Given that we already know 3-5 glasses of red wine reduce mortality for coronary artery disease, and that 3-5 glasses of red wine provides ~180-300 mg of wine solids (polyphenols), wouldn’t this be a prudent dosage range for resveratrol?

Why have resveratrol researchers intentionally chosen to use potentially toxic overdoses that have resulted in negative or null studies?

The current NIH study of resveratrol among Alzheimer’s subjects is likely to doom resveratrol once and for all. It could be likened to the thalidomide disaster. These often frail and over-medicated patients are now going to be given mega-dose resveratrol (1000-2000 mg), under the false assumption this molecule doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier and is not bioavailable. There may be many drug/herb side effects given that resveratrol inhibits protective cytochrome p450 liver detox enzymes, which could make drugs toxic!

The resveratrol research community continues to mistakenly maintain resveratrol is not bioavailable. This myth was started by drug company researchers. It is well documented that liver metabolization of resveratrol (glucuronidation, sulfation) prolongs the half-life of resveratrol from minutes to hours. It is also known that at sites of inflammation, infection and malignancy, the unzipping glucuronidase enzyme is many-fold more active and delivers free unbound resveratrol at the right time and place.

There is some claim that resveratrol does not pass the blood brain barrier. But small molecules that are fat-soluble like resveratrol and are below 400 Daltons molecular weight (resveratrol 228 Daltons) are known to pass the blood brain barrier. In fact, Longevinex is being successfully used to treat wet macular degeneration in humans, so its ingredients must be passing through the blood-ocular barrier.

One of the major problems your group did not address is that resveratrol cannot enter human clinical study for any disease unless a new drug application is filed. There is provision under current regulations to conduct human trials for structure and function claims only (e.g. promotes a healthy heart), but even this type of study has not been launched. FDA regulations are a roadblock for resveratrol as a nutriceutical that may prevent any human disease.

Longevinex has petitioned the FDA to allow it to proceed with human clinical trials without a new drug application for treatment-resistant cases of wet macular degeneration where patients have no other options. A decision by the FDA is forthcoming in March 2013.

In 2011 researchers in Australia, writing in the British Journal of Pharmacology, while bringing up all of the unknowns and potential drawbacks of resveratrol your report did, were certain to say that “The in vitro, in vivo and first clinical evidence have certainly confirmed a role for nutrapharmacology in health, and have provided justification for the daily consumption of resveratrol and other phytochemical containing food products as part of disease prevention, which may ultimately be the reason why these bioactive compounds do exist in nature.” { http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3141184/ ] At least that group took a bold step forward. Yours didn’t.

Bill Sardi, managing partner
Resveratrol Partners LLC, dba LONGEVINEX