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Resveratrol found to fall short in health benefits
Oct. 25, 2012
Courtesy of Washington University School of Medicine
and World
Science staff
Resveratrol—a chemical thought to reduce risk of heart disease and boost lifespan based on animal tests—doesn’t seem to offer these benefits in healthy women, new research indicates. Credit: Robert Boston
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The study, reported online Oct. 25 in the research journal Cell Metabolism, involved 29 post-menopausal women described as reasonably healthy. For 12 weeks, half took an over-the-counter supplement of resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine. The rest of the participants got a sugar pill.
“Resveratrol supplements have become popular because studies in cell systems and rodents show that resveratrol can improve metabolic function and prevent or reverse certain health problems like diabetes, heart disease and even cancer,” said Samuel Klein, senior investigator in the study.
“But our data demonstrate that resveratrol supplementation does not have metabolic benefits in relatively healthy, middle-aged women,” added Klein, who directs the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The results were somewhat surprising, he added. “Few studies have evaluated the effects of resveratrol in people,” Klein explained. “Those studies were conducted in people with diabetes, older adults with impaired glucose [sugar] tolerance or obese people who had more metabolic problems than the women we studied. So it is possible that resveratrol could have beneficial effects in people who are more metabolically abnormal.”
Klein said many who have heard about red wine’s health benefits want to take resveratrol pills to get those benefits without drinking a lot of alcohol; annual U.S. sales of the supplements have
hit $30 million.
Klein and colleagues gave 15 post-menopausal women 75 milligrams of resveratrol daily, the same amount they’d get from drinking 8 liters of red wine. The team measured, among other things, the women’s sensitivity to the hormone insulin. That’s because resveratrol has been found to improve this ability, which is impaired in diabetes—a disease that has worries health experts because it is increasingly common and and linked to obesity.
But “we were unable to detect any effect of resveratrol” on insulin sensitivity, Klein said. “In addition, we took small samples of muscle and fat tissue from these women to look for possible effects of resveratrol in the body’s cells, and again, we could not find any changes.”
But if resveratrol doesn’t have a health benefit, then why are red wine drinkers less likely to develop heart disease and diabetes? Klein said there may be something else in red wine that provides the benefit. “Resveratrol could have a synergistic effect when combined with other compounds in red wine,” he said.
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Resveratrol—a chemical thought to reduce risk of heart disease and boost lifespan based on animal tests—doesn’t seem to offer these benefits in healthy women, new research indicates. The study, reported online Oct. 25 in Cell Metabolism, involved 29 post-menopausal women described as reasonably healthy. For 12 weeks, half took an over-the-counter supplement of resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine. The rest of the participants got a sugar pill. “Resveratrol supplements have become popular because studies in cell systems and rodents show that resveratrol can improve metabolic function and prevent or reverse certain health problems like diabetes, heart disease and even cancer,” said Samuel Klein, senior investigator in the study. “But our data demonstrate that resveratrol supplementation does not have metabolic benefits in relatively healthy, middle-aged women,” added Klein, who directs the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The results were somewhat surprising because earlier studies suggested that drinking red wine lowers the risk of health problems, he added. “Few studies have evaluated the effects of resveratrol in people,” Klein explains. “Those studies were conducted in people with diabetes, older adults with impaired glucose [sugar] tolerance or obese people who had more metabolic problems than the women we studied. So it is possible that resveratrol could have beneficial effects in people who are more metabolically abnormal.” Klein said many who have heard about red wine’s health benefits want to take resveratrol pills to get those benefits without drinking a lot of alcohol; annual U.S. sales of the supplements have risen to $30 million. Klein and colleagues gave 15 post-menopausal women 75 milligrams of resveratrol daily, the same amount they’d get from drinking 8 liters of red wine. The team measured, among other things, the women’s sensitivity to the hormone insulin. That’s because resveratrol has been found to improve this ability, which is impaired in diabetes—a disease that has worries health experts because it is increasingly common and and linked to obesity. But “we were unable to detect any effect of resveratrol” on insulin sensitivity, Klein said. “In addition, we took small samples of muscle and fat tissue from these women to look for possible effects of resveratrol in the body’s cells, and again, we could not find any changes.” But if resveratrol doesn’t have a health benefit, then why are red wine drinkers less likely to develop heart disease and diabetes? Klein said there may be something else in red wine that provides the benefit. “Resveratrol could have a synergistic effect when combined with other compounds in red wine,” he said.