Some Recent Interesting Studies

On my first entry in this blog I discussed resveratrol and some of its benefits. Several companies make resveratrol extracts and products. If you Google resveratrol, there are 12,300,000 hits (12-14-09). Three companies paid to be put at the front of the line. Of all the products available, I deeply believe that Vivix, a product of the Shaklee Corporation, is the best that is out there. In clinical tests, it is ten times as potent as resveratrol alone because of added natural supplements. It is safe, powerful and guaranteed. More about the proof of this later.

You might consider looking at an independent study on pubmed.com by the UC Berkeley School of Public Health published in Nutr J Oct 2007 by G Block. This is a long term study which compared the overall health of users of Shaklee supplements versus users of other vitamin and herbal supplements versus those who used no supplements. This study was not published by Shaklee. Using a variety of criteria to define better health such as Cholesterol and triglyceride levels, fasting blood sugar, blood sugar, serum homocysteine, and a questionnaire. Of the three groups, the group consuming Shaklee products scored considerably more favorably than consumers of other products, and non-consumers.

The current count on the number of articles in medical journals about resveratrol is 3034 (12-14-09). The research covers a wide variety of clinical conditions ranging from cancer to arthritis to heart protection and more. I will continue to share summaries of articles which I find interesting and I hope you do also.

Here are some recent interesting studies:

1. Heart protection: In China, a group of rats was fed resveratrol and another group was not. Each was operated on and a clamp was placed on a coronary artery bringing blood to the heart muscle, simulating what occurs during a heart attack. The clamps were removed after 30 minutes, simulating an angioplasty. The group was sacrificed and the resveratrol group had less muscle damage and less swelling of the heart muscle cells, protecting the heart from loss of oxygen. (Eur J Pharmaco 12-08)

2. Neurodegenerative diseases: This is a review article from Mexico looking at the benefits of resveratrol in conditions like epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s, and nerve injury. They review a number of articles on each of these conditions and the benefits of resveratol. Their conclusion was that there is a benefit in animal models and more studies are needed.

3. Healing: In Turkey, half of a group of rats were given resveratrol and half not (are you seeing a pattern here?). They then underwent surgery and the colon was cut and then repaired. Rats were then sacrificed at 3 and 7 days after the repair. The resveratrol group had significantly fewer wound infections, leaks at the repair site, abscesses, and abnormal scar tissue. The resveratrol group had better healing overall than those rats not on the supplements.

I hope this information is as interesting and useful to you as it is to me.

Shaklee Videos: Vivix®

Shaklee Videos: Vivix®

I would like to introduce myself

I would like to introduce myself. I am a urologist in private practice in Colorado with a 25 year history of a side interest in nutrition and natural food supplements. This side interest has covered the gamut from speeding wound healing to enhancing the immune system to slowing the aging process. Almost all of my information comes from articles published in medical journals. The easiest way to find them is through the National Library of Medicine (www.pubmed.com). Anyone can use this tool for free. You don’t even have to register or logon. It is a search engine for published articles in the world’s medical literature. Some articles are clinical, some are very esoteric reports on biochemical reactions, and others are review articles or a summary of articles published on a particular topic.

One recent subject which caught my attention was a revisit of the “French Paradox”. In general, the French people eat more fat, smoke more and exercise less than Americans, yet they tend to be healthier and live longer than us, thus the paradox. After looking at all of the variables, one finding that the French drink more red wine. The main active ingredient turns out to be polyphenol named resveratrol. This compound was first discovered about 50 years ago and the first article I could find in Pub Med was printed in February 1978. Since the 3020 articles have been published as of Nov 29, 2009.

Resveratrol has so many beneficial properties it begins to sound like snake oil—something too good to be true. It Has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, free radical scavenging, angiogenic and ischemic pre-conditioning properties. (Exp Clin Cardol Fall 2006 pp 217-25). Many of the 3020 articles involve using resveratrol for conditions as varied as cancer, arthritis, diabetes, inflammatory conditions such as Crohn’s disease, aging, and asthma. Resveratrol is also helpful in neurodegenerative diseases where there is not a whole lot of traditional treatments, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS and Lou Gehrig’s disease. (CNS Neurosci Fall 2008 pp234-47)

I would like to end this day’s blog with a review of 3 fascinating articles. Most of the cancer research involving resveratrol is done on cell cultures, cancer cells growing in a glass dish, or on lab animals.

1. Cancer: In Korea, researchers mixed colon cancer cells which were already resistant to chemotherapy agents with resveratrol. Before resveratrol the cancer cells were growing. After mixing the two together the cells died. (Ann NY Acad Sci Jan 07 pp 441-8).

2. Cancer: Another cancer article involved oral administration of resveratrol to half of the mice. All the mice were then injected with live colon cancer cells intravenously. The mice were killed after 20 days and their lungs were the examined for metastases, spread of cancer. Only 3.7% of the non-resveratrol mice were cancer free versus 68.7% of the resveratrol mice (Mol Nutr Food Res Oct 09).

3. Cancer/Aging: The final article involves exposure of ultraviolet or sunlight to the skin and the problems associated with it such as premature aging of the skin, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers. In resveratrol treated mice there were fewer cancers and less aging changes. Think what this means for an anti-aging effect (Arch Dermatol Res Nov 09)

My goal is to periodically update research on resveratrol for as many different clinical conditions as possible. I hope that this information may bring an alternative to people suffering from ailments where traditional medicine is either not working or does as much harm as good.


Dr. Bob