This is getting ridiculous:
A drug already shown to reverse the effects of obesity in mice and make them live longer has now been shown to increase their endurance as well.
[…] An ordinary laboratory mouse will run one kilometer on a treadmill before collapsing from exhaustion. But mice given resveratrol, a minor component of red wine and other foods, run twice as far. They also have energy-charged muscles and a reduced heart rate, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell by Johan Auwerx and colleagues at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France.
“Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,” Dr. Auwerx (pronounced OH-wer-ix) said in an interview.
Let’s recap – the demonstrated effects of resveratrol include cancer resistance, prolonged lifespan, mitigating diabetes and other effects of morbid obesity, fighting diseases both inherited, acquired and infectious and now it can make you a champion athlete without training. Plus it has no toxic effects at any concentration yet measured. Ye gods. The FDA has not yet classified resveratrol as a drug so numerous manufacturers offer it as a nutritional supplement, with all the attendant upsides and downsides. For example herbal supplements often contain little to no of what they advertise plus shocking quantities of contaminants and heavy metals. That’s right libertarians, the FDA does serve a purpose.
Dr. David Sinclair, the Harvard researcher who discovered resveratrol, recommends the brand Longevinex for reasons that have to do with the compound’s instability in the presence of oxygen. Alternatively Longevinex might have offered the most lucrative sponsorship package. Update: yes to the former story, no to the latter. As with everything on the unregulated market, caveat emptor.
***
If you plan to get resveratrol the natural way, even if the dosage is a bit low, try the Menage a Trois red, a blend of Zin, Merlot and Cab Franc from the Folie a Deux winery in St. Helena, CA. Buttery smooth, a touch of spice and an aftertaste that reminded me of chocolate. It has that goes-with-anything character that makes Merlot a hit in America but with a pleasant depth of character from the blend. Buy it not long before you plan to drink it since the flipside of buttery smoothness is very little tannins or acidity.
***Update***
You probably want to know more about resveratrol. Read the rest of my coverage here. Read about obesity and diabetes here, or skim the multitudinous sources at Wikipedia.
***Update 2***
Gazillions of good resveratrol references here.
Pb
We’re building a race of super-mice? Awesome! Let me know when they can leap tall buildings…
jcricket
You need to add “hippies and “alternative health nuts” to that.
I always find it shocking that the same people that decry the “profit motive” and what-not of FDA/big pharmaceuticals as biasing their work don’t apply the same skepticism to the $14 billion herbal supplement market.
I wish America were more like Germany, where all things sold that are “medicinal” or “supplements” have to go through the same kind of regulations and are subject to the same oversight. The FDA isn’t perfect, but no oversight is far worse, and the can be made better.
mrmobi
Man, I could have used some of that “resveratrol” last week in mile 13 of a 15 mile run. Is this considered “cheating?” Just curious.
I read that to get a significant amount of this substance from drinking wine, you’d have to drink about 100 bottles. Sounds worth a try to me, but running afterward, maybe… not so much.
Tom in Texas
mrmobi:
I was wondering when wine will be classified a performance enhancing drug as well. No Italians or French will ever win another medal.
jcricket
I for one eagerly await the rule of our super-mice overlords.
Meatball55
Don’t you remember Pinky and the Brain?
jcricket
Of course?
Pinky (played by GW Bush): Zoinks! Narf! What are we gonna do today Brain?
Brain (played by Rove or Cheney): Same thing we do every day, Pinky. Try to take over the world.
Pb
jcricket,
Sweet! That needs to be a flash movie or something. I can see it now…
craigie
So it makes you superhuman, it’s called menage a trois and it gets you drunk?
Out of my way, I have to fill up my basement with some cases of magic grape juice…
Krista
Now, if they could just pump up the reservatrol content in wine without affecting the taste…
“Why yes, it is my third glass of Pinot Noir — I’m training for a 10K!”
terry chay
Still recovering from too much naturally occurring resveratrol drinking last night to talk about red wine today.
So this will be about Friday Beer Blogging:
I had no idea Pittsburgh Brewing was in Chapter 11.
Does anyone ever remember their Iron City Steelers commemorative cans of the 70’s?
Kirk Spencer
A bit of research, and I discover that most wines have between 0.2 and 5.8 mg/L of this magical substance – Reds toward the high, Whites toward the low. But then I discovered that all Muscadine wines – white AND red – have around 40 mg/L. And suddenly, I find myself wondering…
How much of this is in unfermented grape juice?
srv
OK, Tom in Tx or someone help me out with Muscadine Wines. Who, what, where?
Njorl
Were they the ones who made “Old Froth and Slosh”?
TenguPhule
I forsee an invasion of France in the future to secure this valuable resource.
Tom in Texas
Muscadine wines are about the cheapest wine you can buy. They are grown in the Old South, up to around Missouri, IIRC. It’s usually referred to as hillbilly juice around most wine snobs. Almost like bringing up white zin around that crowd. To be honest, I tend to give those snobs about the same amount of respect I give a music or movie critic — that is to say, next to none. If I like a movie I like it.
numbskull
Oh, I don’t know, Tom. When I was in Sonoma and Napa valleys a couple of years ago I came across some wine people who had good things to say about mescadine wines. I admit I was surprised at this; I pretty much thought what you wrote prior to that encounter.
RSA
If we don’t invade France we’ll see everday wine going for more than $20 a bottle.
Teak111
You mean all that ironman training and I could have just taking a pill instead and finished in 8 instead of 13 hours. What a ripoff. That wine sounds good though, JC. Wish I still drank. Miss wine.
Tim F.
Not very much. Resveratrol is extremely sensitive to oxidation, so it only lasts when you keep it away from oxygen. Recall that when you open wine to ‘breathe’ you are letting it oxidate. Letting O2 in the bottle starts a timer, about 24 hours, before the resveratrol is mostly inactive.
You don’t let grape juice breathe because it starts out oxidated. Which means no resveratrol.
Kirk Spencer
If I’m reading the literature correctly, Sinclair’s claim of the negative effects of oxidation are contested.
Supplementing this doubt is the note in the Wiki article that the organic food markets extract the resveratrol from dried red grape skins – and I think that the drying method would be highly susceptible to oxidation effects.
It’s the dried red grape skins that led me to the question that I asked about grape juice.
–supplemental answer just before posting–
AHA. concordgrapejuice.com/health11.htm
Dave
I’m going to pretend I didn’t read this part of the Wikipedia article.
Jay
To be serious for five seconds, this could be the case in the same way Dr. Sinclair might have fabricated the results of the entire study. In other words, only if he wants to get into deep shit.
Now I must away to secure several cases of the three-way vino. It will go well with my stash of Marquis de Sade.
Tim F.
The author said that in part because nobody has completed clinical studies on humans yet. Until the studies are done (and for longevity you might, um, wait a while) you can take the effective dosage in rats, in units of mg/kg, and translate up to your own weight.
ImJohnGalt
From here:
CaseyL
The link to the Linus Pauling Institute has a handy chart at the bottom comparing resveratrol levels in foods and beverages.
Looks like the highest levels are in Spanish red wines (0.29-1.89 in a 5-oz glass), Spanish red grape juice (0.17-1.30 in a 5-oz glass), boiled peanuts (!) (0.32-1.28 per cup), and red grapes (0.24-1.25 per cup).
Peanut butter has very low levels; gotta be the boiled.
So a resveratrol-rich snack would be 1/2 cup Spanish red grapes with 1/2 cup boiled peanuts, washed down with a 5-oz glass of Spanish red wine.
Yum?
jake
Former? Latter? Which? Where? Stop. What is this link to a blog for the Immortality Institute (really? yeesh) updating and what is/isn’t it supporting?
Perhaps you meant to link to this entry where the poster claims Sinclair is suing the company for using his name without his permission?
But we’re talking about blog posts, unsupported by anything than our faith in the people posting. I don’t know these guys from a hole in the ground. They could both be wrong, for all I know.
But there is this from the Harvard Univeristy Gazette (July 22, 2004):
Hmmm. Harvard U Gazette or two guys yackin’ on a message board…
Sorry about the research nerding, but it looks like you should ditch the graph about Sinclair boosting Longevinex (which sounds like a bit Viagra-ish but then, it is late).
Tim F.
Jake,
The story is quite a bit simpler than you make it out to be. The comment from ImJohnGalt above meshes entirely with the story told to me personally by Sinclair some years back. That is, he found that most manufacturers failed to keep their product away from oxidation. Longevinex took the appropriate care so he decided to recommend them, whether or not that ever upgraded to an official endorsement. Your discovery is not inconsistent with Sinclair backpedaling after he discovered that even his unofficial recommendation broke university rules.
All I can offer is that he spoke consistently with ImJohnGalt’s link at one time. If that changed then so be it.
jake
Great, but you must see that “Sinclair told me personally” is a lot more substantive than links to unsourced blogs (particularly when there is dispute within the blog). In other words: Oooooh! Why dint ya just say so?
But thanks for the clarification.
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