I was watching Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld on TV on Sunday and he said that he recommends taking resveratrol for preventive health and anti-aging effects. In fact, he says that he regularly takes it himself. I’ve been watching Dr. Rosenfeld for years and he always seems to be down to earth and informed, about not only the latest fads, but the empirical research concerning these fads. In short, when he speaks, I listen.
So I’m wondering if I’m missing something here, either about Dr. Rosenfeld, or about resveratrol. Does anyone know of anything bad about him that I should be aware of before I follow his advice?
And about resveratrol…Is that a good idea? And if it is, where should I buy it? Sorting through all the info on the Internet is just too overwhelming right now.
Looks to me like resveratrol is at best unproven and could have side effects. I personally wouldn’t used something like this without better evidence behind it but I don’t know everything.
I’ve been taking it for about 2 years. There is a lot of reputable evidence in its favor. The brand I take is Source Naturals, and is sold at Whole Foods and GNC.
5-10 years ago, if you read the lay press, it was blatantly apparent that antioxidants were the things that were aging and killing otherwise healthy old people. The C. elegans and mice models proved it, and if people could just load up on antioxidants like vitamin E, they’d live forever.
Mice, fruit-flies, nematodes, and humans are different. Obviously, over millions of years of evolutionary development, we’ve evolved an ecological niche dependent upon long lifespans which mice have not developed. For instance, we have innate antioxidant protective systems that mice don’t have.
As far as I’ve been able to discover, the evidence of resveratrol doing any good for “primates and up” in the food-chain is nonexistent. I can’t promise that it will never come, but for the time being diet and exercise offers a greater likelihood of extended life. I’ll continue to pursue those avenues for now.
Sorry to split posts again, but the subject got me reading and here’s a good review on maximal life-span interventions from the future (February 2009) prepared by some folks at the National Institute of Aging (a part of the NIH).
Here’s a relevant bit on resveratrol:
“Another
potentially fruitful research approach, which
avoids the obvious challenges of retention and
compliance with CR in humans, is the search
for compounds that mimic the effects of calorie restriction
without the need for food restriction. There is
some evidence in lower organisms that calorie restriction’s effect
on longevity might require sirtuins, and sirtuins
have been found to be activated by a family
of polyphenols, including a natural compound
called resveratrol (46). Resveratrol can increase
life span in yeast, Drosophila, C. elegans, and at
least one species of fish, but its effect in mice is
less clear. It was recently reported that median
life span can be increased by feeding resveratrol
to extremely obese and overfed mice (47),
but that resveratrol did not significantly affect
maximal lifespan of these mice, nor did it affect
either median or maximal lifespan of regularfed
mice (48).”
I guess the lesson is to climb on the hamster wheel.
For what it’s worth, I’m a scientist who works in the pharmaceutical industry, and resveratrol is the only supplement I take. There’s actually pretty good data, in VERY reputable journals (Nature and Science) that suggests that there are beneficial effects. As others have noted, nearly all of this is in lower organisms, though there is some decent mouse data now too.
I thought enough of it to invest in Sirtris, a company that does this sort of research, which made me a nice coupla bucks when it was bought out earlier this year. So, I was an investor, but no longer have any financial interest in them!
Anecdote (not data!): I’ve been taking it daily for about five years. My blood pressure (still a bit high) has never been lower, and if anything I’ve put on a few pounds, exercise less, eat worse and have a higher stress job now than when my blood pressure was high.
I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that it doesn’t work, but there’s enough data to convince me to take it.
Resveratrol has been highly recommended by Dr. Mehmet Oz, on *Oprah. *Though I have mixed feelings about Oprah, I have never known Dr. Oz to give bad advice. And yes, he claims to take it himself.
Supposedly, after taking it for a short time, you start to experience increased energy, weight loss, lower blood pressure and normalized blood glucose for diabetics.
I started taking it a few days ago. I’ll let you know whether I notice any difference. Of course the placebo effect may come into play, but that’s not an entirely bad thing.
Does anyone know if it matters if the source of the resveratrol is from grape skins or knotweed? I’ve seen that the supplements from knotweed are cheaper. It’s also confusing that some supplements contain extracts from grapeseeds, but I heard it is only contained in the grape skins. Anyone know anything about this?
From what I’ve read, the amount of resveratrol consumed by the average wine drinker is extremely low and is unlikely to be tied to any possible heath benefits seen in France. I’ve been taking the stuff for a few weeks & am still waiting to see some kind of noticeable effects.
