Resveratrol Physiological Effects

Under the attack of bacteria and fungus many plants naturally produce resveratrol which is a phytoalexin. Chemical supplements are used to produce resveratrol which is synthetic and acts as nutritional supplement which is chiefly derived from Japanese knotweed. The life span of many short lived species can be increased from the use of resveratrol but it has not shown any effects on mammals till date. As per reports in rats and mouse resveratrol has shown marvelous results in anti-cancer, blood sugar lowering, anti-inflammatory and other cardio vascular processes.

By far the effects of resveratrol are yet to be proved on human beings. By far only one experiment of resveratrol has succeeded in humans that too in lowering blood sugar with a high dosage of resveratrol of about 3-5 grams in a special proprietary formulation. The skin of red grapes contains resveratrol and it is a chief ingredient of red wine but its amount is not that substantial to throw a light on French paradox that the coronary heart disease is relatively low in southern parts of France regardless of the fact that their intake of saturated fat is relatively high.

Now let us discuss the few physiological effects of resveratrol

First of all we shall discuss the life extension factors of resveratrol: the life span of worms and fruit flies is known to be increased by resveratrol. By the use of resveratrol doctors have proven that the average life span of worms can be increased by almost seven months. The Italian scientists were the first to obtain success full results in vertebrates by the use of resveratrol when they used the supplements of resveratrol on the species of a short lived fish known as Nothobranchius fruzeri.

This species has a live span of nine weeks but with the use of resveratrol its life span was increased by almost 56%. The high fat diet was compounded by adding hydrogenated coconut oil to the standard diet; it provided 60% of energy from fat, and the mice on it consumed about 30% more calories then the mice on standard diet. Both the mice fed the standard diet and the high-fat diet plus 22 mg/kg resveratrol had a 30% lower risk of death than the mice on the high-fat diet. Gene expression analysis indicated the addition of resveratrol opposed the alteration of 144 out of 155 gene pathways changed by the high-fat diet. Still researchers are carrying on their experiments with resveratrol to find significant results on human life.