Dr. Sofia Diaz-Miranda, Professor and senior research scientist, Institute of Neurobiology, UNAM, Queretaro, Mexico (yoldi@servidor.unam.mx), February 2009.
Revestrarol is a natural polyphenol with anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous properties that, nowadays, is also utilized in heart disease and obesity treatments. It is found in grape and its derivatives such as wine and grape juice, as well as in oyster and leguminous such as nut and peanut, among others.
Epidemiological studies in humans, performed by French researchers since 1997, have demonstrated its potential neuroprotective activity, observing the low rate dementia, including Alzheimer disease cases in people whose red wine consumption has been moderate. The neuroprotective effect confirmed with the resveratrol administration in cultured hippocampal neurons against amyloid β–peptide, a neurotoxic peptide that likely plays a critical role in Alzheimer. Thus, in rodents, pre-, co- and post-treatment with resveratrol significantly attenuated A-β-induced cell death.
A recent study of Rivera and coworkers (2008) at the University of Granada, Spain, has shown in Zucker rats (obese), that resveratrol reduces the concentrations of triglycerides, total cholesterol, and free fatty acids, leptine and insulin in plasma, and fat in liver. Thus, concluding that resveratrol improves dislipidemia, hyperinsulinemia, hyperpeptidemia and hypertension in such obese rats. Despite the skepticism concerning its short life in the organism, in vivo assays reveal that resveratrol is distributed in all organs: in mice liver and kidneys 90 minutes after its administration, and remaining six hours later in lungs, intestine, heart and brain. When ingested, it is absorbed in the duodenum and it can be combined with glucose and metabolized by liver.
At the present time, harvested products with high levels of resveratrol have been developed by genetic engineering, under the category of design of “functional foods” together with vitamins and other nutritious elements; ergogenic feature for sportsmen and aged people diets.
It has been shown, in laboratory researches, that resveratrol improves the physical capacity of animals fed with a diet enriched with these products; however, more studies in humans are required to clarify its true role in nutrition and physiology.
The antioxidant and anti-aging capacity of resveratrol is evident in the modifying the chromatin structure and the genetic transcription in yeast of the fruit fly, nematodes, fish and mice. In mammals, on the other hand, it prevents heart disease caused by aging, expanding life span.
Even though the findings are promising to propose resveratrol as an anti-aging molecule candidate, more clinical research has to be done to elucidate this potential role of the molecule.