Ever since the recent report on 60 Minutes in January 2009 featured the anti aging resveratrol, there has been a lot of attantion on the ‘red wine pill.’

What did the report say?

The report talked about this red wine supplement and mentioned some pretty interesting facts about resveratrol, as well as how interest in this ‘anti aging’ ingredient came about.

If you’re interested in anti aging, then have a look at this report.

Resveratrol in the news includes other news programs .

But this was one of the longer and more informative ones.

Let’s have a look at what was said in the resveratrol 60 Minutes program:

Here’s the 60 Minutes video on resveratrol:

Here’s a summary of the 60 Minutes program:

Dr. Westphal says we all may soon be taking a drug that just might beat the clock.

In terms of longevity as well as leading healthier lives:

“Our goal is to prevent and forestall many of the diseases that strike us as we reach 50, 60, and 70. All with one pill.”~1

The interest in resveratrol began with the French paradox, where “despite a high fat diet and high consumption of wine - had a remarkably low incidence of heart disease, compared with Americans.” ~1

Then the discovery of resveratrol in red wine caused scientists to believe that it may explain the Franch paradox and in higher doses may have anti aging benefits as well.

Dr. Westphal and David Sinclair, now key researchers in resveratrol met in 2003, which led them to make the connection between resveratrol and its effect on the anti aging gene.

Sinclair, from Harvard who showed Westphal that lifespan can be increased in yeast with the activation of certain genes. In humans and other animals, it is via the Sirtuin or Sirt-1 gene.

Convinced that something in nature could activate this anti aging gene, Sinclair tested thousands of compounds.

He found a hit: it was that resveratrol.

And red wine was rich in this resveratrol compound, which comes from the grape skin expecially.

Is there another way to activate this gene?

At the time, it was also known that calorie restriction turns the gene on, whereas overeating turns it off.

In studies in monkeys on calorie restriction for example, it was found that the “slimmer monkeys” did better.

“And the chunky monkeys? Many have diabetes, and a significantly higher number have cancer and heart disease.” ~1

There is even a CRS, a calorie restriction society in the US, devoted to living a calorie restriction lifetyle.

The next step in the puzzle was that resveratrol was found to have the effect of calorie restriction on mice studies by Sinclair in his now famous Harvard Medical School study on resveratrol.

The mice were protected from the biochemical and physical changes of obesity and a high calorie diet. The group with resveratrol performed better physically, had improved longevity, as well as healthy, instead of aged organs as found in their organ analyses on heart and liver.

“We have a pill that can mimic many of the effects of calorie restriction or exercise,” Westphal says. ~1

Progressing onto human studies of resveratrol, Sinclair looked at the effectiveness of resveratrol on reducing blood sugar levels in diabetes.

And the results?

“The results were impressive: it significantly lowered glucose and insulin levels, without the patients changing their diet or taking any other drugs.” ~1

It seems as if resveratrol holds a lot of promise in many areas of health.

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Sinclair’s conclusion was:

“We’re talking about is potentially making a 90-year-old as healthy as a 60-year-old. A 90-year-old can play tennis, and see their great grandkids graduate from college. People will live active, healthy lives and then die quietly in their sleep. And that’s really the aim here with these medicines,” he says.  ~1

Now, a more potent version of resveratrol is in the process of being developed for the purpose of testing of resveratrol in cancer patients.

In the meantime, natural resveratrol is available as supplements, and is already very popular anti aging supplement.

Resveratrol has beenused by the Japanese as a traditional healing and health promoting supplement, and now scientific process is coming into the story with human trials.

We’re bound to hear more about resveratrol.

It’s now been featured on a variety of  programs and medical journals, and many physicians as well as non physicians are taking this ‘anti aging’ supplement.

References

1

60 Minutes report on CBS News 2009

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