Another Failure In Resveratrol Research

If resveratrol is of questionable value in treating heart disease, maybe it is of value in treating diabetes. That was the working hypothesis of a team of researchers working at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark.

Recruiting 24 obese but otherwise healthy men, the Danish scientists gave them resveratrol or a placebo for a month. The research team monitored blood pressure, weight, body fat percentages, bloodstream markers of inflammation, and insulin resistance, the ability of cells, especially fat cells to respond to insulin so that the pancreas does not eventually "burn out" to cause diabetes. The volunteers for this study were overweight, but were not yet diagnosed with either diabetes or pre-diabetes.

And at the end of this most recent clinical trial, what were the proven benefits of resveratrol? As it turns out, none. So naturally the resveratrol establishment has tried to spin the results for damage control. Resveratrol experts have suggested:

• The participants in the study in Denmark did not show any improvements in metabolic markers because they were actually healthy, just obese. Maybe it's necessary to be sicker to benefit from resveratrol. 
• Maybe the problem was that these metabolically healthy, young men were given too much resveratrol. In the Danish study, participants who got resveratrol received 1,500 mg per day. A smaller, less tightly controlled study of middle-aged men found benefits when they were given 150 mg per day. Perhaps it is best not to take more than 300 mg per day. (The pharmaceutical company won't mind. They can still charge the same price for the smaller capsule.)
• Or maybe it is necessary to restrict future studies to people who have a pre-defined health issue. Resveratrol may not be a life extension agent for everyone, but surely there is some ailment it is good for.

Or maybe scientists have been looking at the wrong red wine chemical. Researchers in Austria have found that resveratrol is only one of over two dozen potent antioxidants in red wine, and resveratrol is not even a particularly potent antioxidant. There are other compounds in red wine that are up to 6,000 times more effective for removing free radicals of oxygen. 

And if red grape extract produces benefits, but resveratrol does not, then maybe it's drinking actual red wine that makes the difference in health. A knotweed-derived resveratrol supplement just can't do the same thing.

Red grape juice does not have the same, potent antioxidants as red wine. Some of the antioxidant compounds in red wine are created by interactions of the fermenting wine with the oak in the barrels in which it is stored. However, non-alcoholic wines contain the same range of antioxidants as regular wine, and should hold similar benefits for good health.