Comprehensive Library Of Resveratrol News

Stem cell therapy in cases of heart failure or post-heart attack has been disappointing.  Heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) regenerate or are replaced very slowly, so stem cell therapy has been attempted.  The hope therapy has been that these stem cells will differentiate into cardiac muscle cells, preventing heart failure.  Here, in this ground-breaking study, researchers fed laboratory animals the red wine molecule resveratrol (rez=vair-ah-trawl) two weeks prior to an intentionally-induced heart attack.  Then stem cells were injected into the heart, with increased survival of these cells noted and increased pumping action of the heart measured.  There was greater survival of resveratrol-treated animals.  Read the abstract below.  – Bill Sardi for ResveratrolNews.com

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A recently recognized biological mechanism that switches genes on and off may play a larger role in aging than previously thought.

That mechanism involves short stands of RNA, about 1/100^th the length of a typical gene, called microRNAs, which are only 22 nucleotides in length (nucleotides comprise the rungs on the DNA ladder), which may interfere with normal messenger RNA in the production of protein.

As a brief background to readers, when genes are activated, a process called gene expression, they produce protein. When genes are switched off, called gene silencing, no protein is made. MicroRNAs interfere with this protein-making process and thus switch genes off.

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Note: see late-breaking bulletin at bottom of story

The regulatory status of resveratrol as both an investigational drug (SRT501, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Mass.) and widely sold dietary supplement has presented a number of conjectural problems.

What would happen if the drug version of this molecule were nothing better than what is available as a dietary supplement?  Furthermore, to further blur the difference between dietary supplement and pharmaceutical drug, the dietary supplement industry today is now working under FDA-prescribed Good Manufacturing Practices which, if complied with, may no longer give pharmaceuticals such a big advantage over dietary supplements in quality.

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In his new free online e-book, How The World Got Lost On The Road To An Anti-Aging Pill, health investigator Bill Sardi says three things have side-tracked humanity from finding that long sought-after fountain of youth or anti-aging pill that was the pursuit of explorers like Ponce de Leon and modern researchers like Linus Pauling.

Since the prospect of an anti-aging pill was first announced in late 2003, when a Harvard scientist first reported a red-wine molecule caused yeast cells to live far longer in a lab dish, the adoption of such red-wine pills has been puzzlingly slow.

Six years after that announcement, red-wine resveratrol (rez-vair-ah-trawl) pills have been adopted by fewer than 1 million Americans, generating sales of around $30 million (2008 estimate).  “Compare that to over $1 billion of sales of Viagra pills in their first year of availability,” says Sardi.

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