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Resveratrol may be a natural exercise performance enhancer: researchers

June 19th, 2012 in Health

A natural compound found in some fruits, nuts and red wine may enhance exercise training and performance, demonstrates newly published medical research from the University of Alberta.

Principal investigator Jason Dyck and his team found out in experiments that high doses of the natural compound resveratrol improved physical performance, heart function and muscle strength in lab models.

“We were excited when we saw that resveratrol showed results similar to what you would see from extensive endurance exercise training,” says Dyck, who works in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry as a researcher in the department of Pediatrics and the department of Pharmacology. “We immediately saw the potential for this and thought that we identified ‘improved exercise performance in a pill.’ ”

His team’s findings were published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology in late May.

Dyck and his team will soon start starting testing resveratrol on diabetics with heart failure to see if the natural compound can improve heart function for this patient group. The 10-week study is expected to start within the next few months.

“I think resveratrol could help patient populations who want to exercise but are physically incapable. Resveratrol could mimic exercise for them or improve the benefits of the modest amount of exercise that they can do,” says Dyck. “It is very satisfying to progress from basic research in a lab to testing in people, in a short period of time.”

Provided by University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

“Resveratrol may be a natural exercise performance enhancer: researchers.” June 19th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-resveratrol-natural.html

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Journal of Physiology

Improvements in Skeletal Muscle Strength and Cardiac Function Induced by Resveratrol Contribute to Enhanced Exercise Performance in Rats

Vernon W Dolinsky¹, Kelvin E Jones¹,Robinder S Sidhu¹, Mark Haykowsky¹, Michael P Czubryt²,
Tessa Gordon¹ and Jason RB Dyck¹,³

+ Author Affiliations
¹ University of Alberta; ² University of Manitoba

Abstract

Exercise training (ET) improves endurance capacity by increasing both skeletal muscle mitochondrial number and function, as well as contributing to favourable cardiac remodelling. Interestingly, some of the benefits of regular exercise can also be mimicked by the naturally occurring polyphenol, resveratrol (RESV). However, it is not known whether RESV enhances physiologic adaptations to ET. To investigate this, male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to a control chow diet or a chow diet that contained RESV (4g/kg of diet) and subsequently subjected to a program of progressive treadmill running for 12-weeks. ET-induced improvements in exercise tolerance were enhanced by 21% (p<0.001) by the addition of RESV to the diet. In soleus muscle, ET+RESV increased both the twitch (1.8-fold; p<0.05) and tetanic (1.2-fold; p<0.05) forces generated during isometric contraction, compared to ET alone. In vivo echocardiography demonstrated that ET+RESV also increased the resting left ventricular ejection fraction by 10% (p<0.05), and reduced left ventricular wall stress compared to ET alone. These functional changes were accompanied by increased cardiac fatty acid oxidation (1.2-fold; p<0.05) and favourable changes in cardiac gene expression and signal transduction pathways that optimized the utilization of fatty acids in ET+RESV compared to ET alone. Overall, our findings provide evidence that the capacity for fatty acid oxidation is augmented by the addition of RESV to the diet during ET, and that this contributes to the improved physical performance of rats following ET.