Compound in Red Wine Has Effects Like Calorie Restriction

Here’s part of the abstract from a recent paper titled “A Low Dose of Dietary Resveratrol Partially Mimics Caloric Restriction and Retards Aging Parameters in Mice”:

We fed mice from middle age (14-months) to old age (30-months) either a control diet, a low dose of resveratrol . . . or a calorie restricted (CR) diet and examined genome-wide transcriptional profiles. We report a striking transcriptional overlap of [the effects of] CR and resveratrol in heart, skeletal muscle and brain. Both dietary interventions inhibit gene expression profiles associated with cardiac and skeletal muscle aging, and prevent age-related cardiac dysfunction. Dietary resveratrol also mimics the effects of CR in insulin mediated glucose uptake in muscle.

This is from the introduction:

Resveratrol, a natural compound found in grapes and red wine has previously been shown to extend lifespan in S. cerevisiae, C. elegans and Drosophila through a SIRT1 dependent mechanism. However, recent studies have failed to reproduce these life extension results and other studies have demonstrated that the ability of resveratrol to activate yeast Sir2 or human SIRT1 is substrate-specific in vitro and resveratrol has no effect on Sir2 activity in vivo . . . . Recently, mice fed a high fat diet supplemented with high levels of resveratrol . . . were shown to have extended lifespan as compared to controls, and several metabolic alterations similar to what is observed with CR.

I first heard of the wonders of resveratrol from James Johnston and Donald Laub, authors of The Alternate Day Diet. Here is a review article about it. The interest of the new study is that a low (i.e., practical) dose is effective.

Thanks to Bob Levinson.