Resveratrol & Weight Loss

Resveratrol is a supplement with a long list of benefits. There have been notable studies that suggest that it can contribute to weight loss. It can be found in healthy foods such as the skin of red grapes, peanuts, and many berries, or in a supplement.

• Can resveratrol benefit dieters?

Studies

• Resveratrol is in red wine

  Studies on mice have shown that life expectancy was lengthened when obese mice were given resveratrol supplements. The mice were allowed to eat a diet high in fat and calories. They also did not experience organ damage as would have been expected due to the high fat diet. In another study, resveratrol was shown to kick start the SIRT1 gene, which is thought to aid in fat burning . Even more exciting is it seemed to prevent weight gain even when the diet contained a high fat content.

Misconceptions

• Mice studies are promising

  People are not mice. While it would be nice to believe that the studies are transferable, consider this: A 150 pound person would have to drink 1,000 bottles of wine to get a proportional amount of reveratrol as given to mice.

Significance

• doses are questionable

  The mice studies are promising, but according to The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, "At present, relatively little is known about the effects of resveratrol in humans."

Dosage

• It is unknown how much resveratrol in supplement form you should take. Most often you will find it in doses of 10-50mg. A trial evaluated the safety of oral resveratrol in 10 subjects and found a single dose up to 5 grams resulted in no serious adverse effects.

Potential

• The trials done on mice are encouraging for the potential benefits for those of us trying to lose weight, but at present there are no conclusive human studies.