Nutraceuticals and nootropics for anti-aging

Resveratrol scores another hit against obesity and diabetes

Resveratrol is the substance found in grape skins that is the basic ingredient in LifeLink’s ilLuminol® supplement.

Resveratrol has received lots of publicity in the past few years and has become the focus of a controversy over its value to human health. On one side are those who think that resveratrol is our current best hope for fighting aging and age-related diseases.¹ On the other are skeptics who think that the claimed benefits are mostly hot air and that the substance actually may have adverse effects.²

The skeptics seem to be losing. The most recent news about resveratrol comes from a study done by researchers at Maastricht University, The Netherlands.^3,4,5 The study showed that 30 days of treatment with resveratrol (150 mg/day) can rescue obese (but otherwise healthy) men from the metabolic decline toward diabetes that normally results from their condition. The supplement had the following benefits:⁵

• lowered deposition of fat in liver and skeletal muscle
• improved liver function
• improved energy availability in muscles
• mimicked the effects of endurance training and caloric restriction
• reduced Sleeping Metabolic Rate (a measure of diabetes risk)⁶
• reduced blood pressure
• improved cardiovascular health
• lowered general inflammation levels (a cause of cardiovascular and metabolic damage)

These results were enough to convince erstwhile skeptics to start using resveratrol themselves.³

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There are many resveratrol products on the market — LifeLink’s is called “ilLuminol®”. The trouble with most of these products is their poor bioavailability. Much of the resveratrol in an oral dose is destroyed before it gets absorbed. The remaining resveratrol is fairly well absorbed into the bloodstream, but is then destroyed in the liver. Less than 1% of the original dose makes it to the places in the body where it is needed.⁸

To solve this problem, a few resveratrol products contain a bioavailability enhancer called “piperine”, that has recently been shown to delay the breakdown of resveratrol, giving it more time to be absorbed and more time to remain in the body once it is absorbed.⁷ LifeLink’s resveratrol product contains this piperine enhancer and, in addition, another enhancer called “quercetin”, which further blocks the destruction of resveratrol and also increases the rate at which resveratrol is absorbed from the digestive tract into the bloodstream and into cells. This makes ilLuminol superior to other resveratrol products on the market.

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References

[1] Red Wine Ingredient May Delay Aging WebMD website, Feb. 10, 2006

[2] Resveratrol, A cure for Aging? — The Evidence Skeptical Science website, October 30, 2010

[3] Mice, Men, and the Measure of Resveratrol Huffington Post website, November 2, 2011

[4] Red wine antioxidant could give metabolism a boost USA Today website, 2011.Nov.02

[5] Calorie Restriction-like Effects of 30 Days of Resveratrol Supplementation on Energy Metabolism and Metabolic Profile in Obese Humans Cell Metabolism 14, 612¡V622, November 2, 2011

[6] Metabolic factors contributing to increased resting metabolic rate and decreased insulin-induced thermogenesis during the development of type 2 diabetes Diabetes, August 1999 vol. 48 no. 8 1607-1614

[7] Enhancing the bioavailability of resveratrol by combining it with piperine. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2011 Aug;55(8):1169-76.

[8] Bioavailability of resveratrol Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2011 Jan; 1215:9-15