Comprehensive Library Of Resveratrol News

Researchers in France have completed the first year of a 5-year study of 38-month old grey mouse lemurs, naturally found on the Island of Madagacar. These lemurs live generally 8-10 years and 5 years of study will likely provide sufficient data on longevity effects of a calorie restricted diet or its proposed molecular mimic, resveratrol.

The dose of resveratrol used in this study is beyond practicality in humans – 200 milligrams per kilogram (2.2-lbs) of body weight per day, or the human equivalent of 14,000 milligrams per day for a 70-kilogram (160-lb) human.

This animal is particularly interesting to study because it exhibits a strong seasonal onset of obesity in winter (short-days) compared to summer (long-days), which were mimicked in the laboratory. Resveratrol supplementation had no effect upon this seasonal change. Calorie restricted lemurs, their diet reduced in calories by 30% compared to animals given a standard calorie diet, exhibited the anticipated lean body mass seen in prior experiments. Resveratrol had no effect upon body mass but did rev up metabolism.

Prior studies have shown that a much lower dose of resveratrol partially mimics calorie restriction and that long-term calorie restriction is required to produce a genomic response affecting 823 genes in heart tissue. However, another prior study showed that relatively low dose resveratrol, when provided with other small molecules (quercetin, rice bran phytateIP6) significantly affected 1711 genes in the short-term, mimicking what long-term calorie restriction would produce.

In conclusion, after only 1 year of treatment, it cannot be proposed that the hormesis theory is the most appropriate hypothesis to explain the effects observed in a non-human primate exposed to CR or RSV supplementation. CR and RSV might be two different stressors taking a different path to produce the same effects. Indeed,

Several differences were observed between calorie restriction and resveratrol-fed animals suggesting similar but different mechanisms and gene pathways. – © 2010 Bill Sardi, Resveratrol News.com

Source: Caloric restriction or resveratrol supplementation and ageing in a non-human primate: first-year outcome of the RESTRIKAL study in Microcebus murinus, Age, early online publication June 9, 2010.