Comprehensive Library Of Resveratrol News

Resveratrol continues to edge closer to becoming the safest and most effective alternative to estrogen replacement during menopause.

The idea behind using resveratrol or any phyto (plant) estrogen is for this molecule’s ability to seat itself on estrogen cell receptors (doorways of entry into cells), thus blunting the effect of natural estrogen.

A recent animal study conducted at Michigan State University revealed that slow-release/low-dose estrogen given to laboratory rats generated the superoxide radical, a form of oxygen free radical that can harm tissues and produce mutations in DNA. Estrogen supplementation also produced unfavorable changes such as elevated blood pressure and faster heart rate. The phytoestrogen resveratrol completely reversed all of these adverse effects. Science Daily published a report about resveratrol’s counteraction against estrogen, found here.

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Researchers report that resveratrol (rez/vair-ah-trol), known as a red wine molecule, helps to reverse what are called somatic cells (cells that have already been converted into muscle, heart, brain, etc. cells) back into being stem cells better than five other molecules tested for such capability. These converted stem cells can then be harvested for insertion into living tissues to replace damaged or aged cells. This discovery is published in an early online edition of the journal Aging Cell.

Such a maneuver, to reverse already developed cells, had already been demonstrated by researchers in Japan about five years ago. But this approach is fraught with drawbacks, namely that viruses used to insert reprogramming factors into cells can induce gene mutations and activate genes that promote cancer. So-called reverse induced pluripotent stem cells have remained a research tool rather than a therapeutic technology. Researchers have been searching for the next big milestone in making stem cells without viruses, which set the stage for resveratrol.

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Gone are the jaw-dropping days when a Harvard scientist captivated audiences on CBS’s 60-Minutes program and on the front pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, talking about the promise of a bona fide anti-aging pill and how his laboratory had found the holy grail of aging, a survival gene known as Sirtuin1, and its molecular activator, resveratrol.

Initial testing showed mega-dose resveratrol prolonged the life of rodents fed a fat-laden diet, but failed to do so for animals on a standard-fat calorie diet. More disconcerting was the widely acclaimed discovery that resveratrol activated the Sirtuin1 survival gene when in fact it was a fluorescent compound used in this assay that was the actual agent that stimulated Sirtuin1, not resveratrol. This only meant that the gene target was off base, not that resveratrol is less promising. But the science was correctly called into question.

Subsequent studies provide mixed results for resveratrol as an activator of the Sirtuin1 gene. [Free Radical Medicine & Biology, The controversial links among calorie restriction, SIRT1, and resveratrol, in press 2011] In mammals neither the over-expression of Sirtuin1 protein nor administration of Sirtuin1 activators could extend the lifespan of mice on a standard-calorie diet.

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Researchers in Sweden report that a single dose of resveratrol combined with a platinum-based anti-cancer drug prevented resurgence of ovarian cancer in a laboratory dish.  This finding is quite extraordinary given that relapse of ovarian cancer following platinum-based drug therapy (cisplatin, carboplatin) is common and 5-year survival for this type of cancer is only 40-45%.

Resveratrol allowed investigators to use low-dose chemotherapy.

A picture of tumor cell growth after 3 days is shown here (below).

The platinum + resveratrol treated tumor cells could not resume growth.   Tumor cells treated with platinum drugs alone or resveratrol alone resumed growth.

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