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March 14, 2007 | Issue 107 |
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"Does red wine counteract the effects of being fat?"
Listen to the razzle-dazzle of recent media headlines, and that's certainly what you'd come away with. “But the headlines, most likely, will fizzle like a dud firecracker, as all headlines touting a 'super' food have, from soy nuts to pomegranate juice," predicts Pritikin Director of Nutrition Jeffrey Novick, MS, RD.
HEALTH BENEFITS
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In the latest research, scientists reported that overweight, middle-aged mice whose high-calorie, high-fat diet was supplemented by resveratrol had better health and lived longer than chubby counterparts who did not receive it. Resveratrol is a compound found in common foods like grapes, red wine, and nuts.
The study, funded in part by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), concluded that resveratrol appeared to lower the rate of diabetes, liver problems, and other fat-related ill effects in obese mice.
But don’t rush out and buy red wine or resveratrol supplements yet, cautions registered dietitian Jeffrey Novick. "The jury is still out, way out.”
For starters, the mice were fed massive doses of resveratrol – 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. “Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-pound person would need to guzzle 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose. Well,” Jeff jokes, “if it didn’t extend your life, you’d be so drunk you wouldn’t really care.”
Pills of resveratrol would require huge doses as well. “Many supplements have about 20 milligrams. The amount used in the study was the equivalent of giving a 150-pound man 1,636 milligrams, which would be about 80 pills a day,” notes Jeff.
Megadoses are scary because everything, even nutrients, is potentially toxic depending on the dose. That’s why the old saying “the dose makes the poison” is so true. Beta carotene is a beneficial chemical naturally occurring (in small amounts) in many fruits and vegetables, but massive doses in supplement form increased the risk of lung cancer in smokers. Huge doses of vitamin E increased the risk of heart problems in heart patients.
Indeed, in an NIH press statement, the authors of the resveratrol study cautioned that “we still have much to learn about resveratrol’s safety and effectiveness in humans.”
Some negative side effects are already known, emphasized one of the study’s authors, Rafael de Cabo, PhD, at NIH. Animal studies have shown that high doses of resveratrol affect blood platelets, which could increase the risk of bleeding when taken with anticoagulant, anti-platelet, or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
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Copyright 2007 Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa. All rights reserved.
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Pritikin Perspective - Healthy Living Made Easier
Pritikin Perspective is a publication for Alumni of the Pritikin Longevity Center. It is dedicated to helping people make healthy changes in their lives. The articles in this publication should not be considered specific medical advice, as each individual circumstance is different. You are strongly encouraged to seek medical advice before beginning a program of diet and exercise.
Editor/Writer: Eugenia Killoran.
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