Posted by kathryn in Antioxidants

It’s hard to pronounce and even harder to spell, but you can expect to hear the name resveratrol a lot more over the next few years. It’s one of the antioxidants found in red wine and the subject of a lot of scientific scrutiny. As an antioxidant it has the potential to benefit our health, protecting against cardiovascular disease, cancer and many other degenerative conditions.

A report today in the SMH, outlines recent research showing that obese mice fed a high saturated and trans fat diet and then supplemented with large doses of resveratrol, had improved health and life expectancy. They had fewer heart and liver problems, improved glucose levels and insulin sensitivity, when compared to the high fat diet group not supplemented with the antioxidant.

“The mice on resveratrol have not just been living longer,” said one senior author, Professor David Sinclair from Harvard Medical School.

“They’re also living more active, better lives (and) their motor skills actually show improvement as they grow older.”

Resveratrol is found in low doses in the skin of red grapes and hence its presence in red wine. As with many antioxidants, it’s actually produced by the plant as a defence mechanism – while we consider it an antioxidant, for the plant it’s an anti-fungal agent. Other food sources include peanuts and some berries (blueberries, bilberries and cranberries).

Research into potential health benefits for “bad” foods is guaranteed to hit the news headlines. If something good can be found in chocolate, wine, cream and cakes, it’ll be in the press. This research used doses of resveratrol that are equivalent to 300 glasses of red wine, so it’s not a “normal” dose. The mice were only monitored for a short period of time and at present we don’t know the long-term effects of this kind of artificial dose in mice, let alone in humans.

But you can bet your boots you’ll start seeing resveratrol appear in multivitamin and antioxidant supplements very soon. While antioxidants are fantastic and important things, eating a healthy diet with lots of fruit and vegies will give you all the antioxidants you need. There are proven benefits to the odd glass of wine, but I certainly wouldn’t be aiming for the levels in this study!

There’ll be more on this in the next couple of weeks, as I’m researching for an article on antioxidants and in the meantime, if you want to know more about resveratrol, take a look at wikipedia’s entry .

Update: for more info you could also look at Science News online’s summary here .

Further update: you could also view the ABC’s story here .

Technorati tags: resveratrol , antioxidant .

02 November, 2006