15 Sep The Antidote of Youth?
Harvard Researcher David Sinclair, who is only 39, discovered that resveratrol, which is found in red wine, helps mice live longer. What Resveratrol does is activate an enzymes called sirtuins. Sirtuins exist inside every cell and essentially preserve the organism for when times are better. This may change the natural lifecycle of our cells which is theorized to be around 92 by Leonard Hayflick.
Resveratrol inhibits metabolic activation of carcinogens, has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as decreases cell proliferation. For those of you keeping track, it is this compound and not the alcohol in red wine which gives it is theorized health benefits. In fact in de-alchohoized red wine, reseveratrol is still present, and health benefits still exist.
Sirtuins, the enzyme stimulated by Reseveratrol, may hold the keys to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, colon cancer and others. Other molecules thought to play a role in aging are MTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin).
Sinclair, featured in June 2009 of Forbes, theorizes that a whole new class of anti-aging medications will be available and takes Reserveratrol himself.
If your thinking I can take a glass of wine with my dinner and I would be fine, you may want to think again. For the amount of reseveratrol when found in pills used in the study, it would require about 1,000 bottles of red wine a day, which is more than I recommend.
Most of the tablets containing reserveratrol are derived from Japanese knotwood and can be had for as little as $4.50 at Walgreen’s. While this research is exciting and promising, only time will tell how effective it is in anti-aging.
The questions often remain, what supplements do I take? Fish oil, resveratrol, glucosamine/chondroitin, and alternate a specialized multivitamin every other day.