What Resveratrol Means to Health, and its Possabilities

Resveratrol has been in and out of the media for the last decade after scientists and doctors noticed the “French Paradox” of the French having great health despite higher fat diets. The discovery was a glass of red wine is good for your health in limited quantities. For those of us who like a good glass of wine, this was good news!  But chronic alcohol consumption has side effects of causing fat to accumulate fat around the liver which may cause liver diseases such as cirrhosis and fibrosis or even worse, kidney failure. After further research, it has been decided that a red wine by-product, Resveratrol was the ingredient behind the wonder. It has since been used in studies for a variety of reasons and is made into supplements with a huge following.

What is this Resveratrol exactly? It is a Antioxident that has been not only found in red wine, but also exists in smaller quantities in: grapes, peanuts, dark Chocolate and cocca. In that Resveratrol can be an anti-inflammatory, lower blood sugar, aide in reducing fat cells, increasing athletic performance, and may reduce the amount of estrogen’s in women’s bodies, therefore inhibiting Breast Cancer initiation.

Information is continuing to evolve as research continues on the different uses of Resveratrol. Just last week information that, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the makers of a FDA approved myalli, used the compound to design the drug SRT1720. It was tested on mice that it “was about a thousand times more potent than resveratrol in activating an enzyme that helped the animals burn more energy and lower their insulin and glucose levels.”. When past research showed that it reduced the amount of fat cells and the effects of calorie restriction even while on a high fat diet, it is not a suprise that a large Pharma company would be soon be in the works for using the compound for fat loss. This same compound is going to be tested for a phase II trial for diabetics.

While there have been numerous studies going back and forth about the effects of Resveratrol, it appears that hearing about this powerful antioxident is not coming to an end soon. Instead, it should be something to keep our eye open about as research continues to go from Mice to Humans.