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.