Randolph's World

So drinking a few glasses of red wine isn’t going to help, as far as getting resveratrol is concerned.

And do you notice that people who live to a very old age eat very little? The lessons have been there all this while – we just fail to see it. Or refuse to believe it ………. Randolph

Resveratrol — Remarkable Anti-aging Supplement

It’s been several years since I talked about resveratrol. It’s this wonderful substance in red wine. You’ve probably read about it and maybe felt all you had to do to take advantage of it is serve yourself a nice glass of Merlot every night. Well, unfortunately, the “French paradox” to the contrary notwithstanding, it is impossible to drink enough red wine to get enough of this incredibly useful substance. You’d need about 500 bottles of wine and you’d fry your liver with the alcohol before you got enough of the resveratrol for the day.

My friend, Nick Temple, gave me a great article this week from the August, 2009 issue of the Life Extension Foundation’s magazine. I respect these folks. They have championed the alternative healing arts, particularly as they pertain to anti-aging, for many years.

The article Nick gave me is called “Extending Life and Fighting Disease with Resveratrol” by Julius Goepp, M.D. I’ll quote you a couple of Dr. Goepp’s opening paragraphs to give you an idea of the exciting nature of the information on this amazing supplement:

“At the forefront of the cutting-edge investigations into resveratrol and health and longevity are Drs. Christoph Westphal and David Sinclair.

Christoph Westphal, MD, PhD, has been referred to by Fortune Magazine as ‘dreamer-in-chief’ of biotech startup company Sirtris Pharmaceuticals based near Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. The moniker is well-earned; Westphal’s dreams appear to include the application of some very exciting science toward the goal of life extension by utilizing resveratrol.

Westphal’s work builds on (and incorporates) that of Harvard scientist David Sinclair, PhD, whose research group is pursuing connections buried deep in the cells of every animal on the planet, that of caloric restriction and longevity. Thanks to the work of Westphal and Sinclair, it is becoming clear that resveratrol mimics the life span-prolonging effects of caloric restriction, even in animals fed normal to high-fat diets.”

I have been aware of Sinclair’s work as a result of reading some of the Life Extension articles on it in the last few years. It has been proven that any animal, including humans, can extend their lifespan by about 40% simply by cutting the intake of daily calories by about 40%. This has been shown to be effective regardless of when it was started during the lifespan of the critter (or human being). Isn’t that great? Just cut what you eat almost in half for the rest of your life and you’ll live a long time. Hmmmmm. I don’t see that this promise has attracted that many of us to adopt that type of restriction on our lifestyle. On the contrary, in spite of knowing this, we still “eat on” and usually become overweight, obese and in ill health.

But what if the same life-extending effect were possible without cutting the calories? Would you be interested? I sure was. To understand this phenomenal property of resveratrol, you need to get familiar with something called “sirtuins.” Here’s how Dr. Goepp describes them:

“The specific molecules…turn out to be members of a protein family called the sirtuins (for silent information regulators), which are activated by caloric restriction. Like a combination of cellular police, fire and ambulance services, sirtuins exert myriad effects aimed at preserving intra-cellular civilization–they stabilize chromosomes and DNA molecules, preventing breaks and damage that can lead to cancer; they promote DNA repair, and they regulate genetic functions that in turn control every activity in the living cell. Most remarkably, decreased sirtuin activity seems to be intimately connected with the cell, tissue and organ changes that typically occur with aging and lead to many of the diseases we label ‘chronic age-related conditions’ such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

At the National Institute on Aging, Dr. Sinclair’s research team experimented with giving resveratrol to mice just as they had done with their caloric restriction studies. Remarkably, they found that the same effects appeared in the resveratrol mice. Elderly mice fed resveratrol along with a normal diet showed a dramatic reduction in signs of aging. The changes in the gene expression were exactly the same as those observed with caloric restriction. What were the changes:

1. Decreased protein loss in urine.
2. Decreased inflammation.
3. Increased elasticity in the aorta.
4. Beneficial changes in blood vessel lning cells.
5. Greater motor coordination.
6. Reduced cataract formation.
7. Preserved bone mineral density.

As Dr. Goepp says: “This study, begun when the mice were at mid-life, did not show any increases in longevity–but translated into human terms, these mice would have enjoyed dramatic improvements in the quality of their lives.”

Then pathologists at Harvard, working with Dr. Sinclair, found that, in fact, length of life actually did result when they fed the mice on a high-calorie diet the resveratrol. That was the only change. The resveratrol mice experienced changes associated with an increase in life span. These included:

1. Increased insulin sensitivity.
2. Increased numbers of mitochondria in cells.
3. Improved motor function.

In fact, the researchers discovered that the resveratrol reversed the effects of the high-calorie diet in 144 out of 153 biochemical pathways!

Does that get your attention? It should. But how about other studies. There have been many all over the world. He recounts studies in Korea, Canada, China, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Hong Kong, Spain, India and the U.S. It seems that conventional cardiologists are agreeing, literally for the first time, that atherosclerosis (the most common form of heart disease) is reversible using resveratrol. It has been found to work in both prevention and treatment of cancer.

If you want to start taking resveratrol regularly, as I am, you’ll find it on many websites. The most effective form is called “trans-resveratrol.” You will find it and many other sources by just doing a Google search for “trans-resveratrol.” I’ll be interested in your feedback once you try it.

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