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