STROKE AND DIABETES

Greetings and welcome back to my Resveratrol based blog.  As you probably know, all of the following information came from published articles from medical journals from around the world.  All are reviewed by experts in that field and approved prior to publication.  They are posted online by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and can be found at www.pubmed.com.  To date there have been 4845 articles published in the medical literature.  This blog will concentrate on D\diabetes and strokes.  A stroke results from loss of blood supply to part of the brain.

STROKE  From the Harvard School of Medicine comes an article on how Resveratrol not only reduces the volume of brain injury after a stroke but also promotes recovery from the stroke.  Testing was done with cell cultures in glass petri dishes.  the presence of Resveratrol in cultures of cells that line arteries induces growth of arteries, a process called angiogenesis.  What this means is that Resveratrol causes a growth of new arteries into areas of damaged brain tissue after a stroke and leads to neurovascular recovery.
Cereb Blood Flow Metab 2012 May pp 884-95

STROKE  From the Medical University of Chongqing, China comes a paper on rats.  Like the previous study, rats were pretreated with Resveratrol.  In this study, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) was done on rats pre-treated with Resveratrol as well as rats on placebo.  An atery in the brain was clamped (stroke) and the unclamped (treatment for a stroke).  The rats were later killed and their brains were examined.  The Resveratrol treated group had a much smaller volume of damaged brain tissue than the non-Resveratrol group.  Resveratrol pretreatment had a neuroprotective effect on brain injury after a stroke.
Neurochem Res 2011 Dec pp 2352-62

STROKE  As opposed to the previous two papers, researchers at the Ewha Women's University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, published research on Resveratrol given after a stroke.  Mice were given a stroke by clamping off an artery in the brain.  Resveratrol was given to one fourth of the mice 3 hours after the strole.  They were then examined for volume of brain damage compared to the brains of untreated mice at the same point in time.  One fourth of the mice were then given Resveratrol at 6 hours after the stroke, killed and examined and compared to the final one fourth of mice stroked and sacrificed at the same time  In mice treated with Resveratrol at 3 hoursor at 6 hours after a stroke had significantly less loss of brain tissue.  This mmay be due the neuroprotective effectsd of Resveratrol as well as its anti-inflammatory properties.
J Immunol 2010 Oct pp 93-100

DIABETES  A paper from Zanjau University, Iran looked at diabetic versus non-diabetic rats.  A drug called Streptozotocin will damage the pancreas and cause diabetes.  One half of the rats were put on oral Resveratrol and the other half on a placebo.  Half of each of these two groups was the given Steptoztocin, causing diabetes.  This resulted in four groups, normal control, diabetic control, normal with Resveratrol, and diabetic with Resveratrol. The diabetic with Resveratrol group had much less change in the blood sugar than the diabetic control group.  Several other lab values were better in the Resveratrol group.  The conclusion was that chronic Resveratrol administratiion is safe, and may be considered as a beneficial and therapeutic compound in Diabetics.
Endocr Regul 2012 Dec pp 83-90

DIABETES  Researchers at the Kyungpook National University in Taegu, Korea used mice to study the effect of Resveratrol on type 2 diabetes.  In this study using diabetic mice, all animals were fed the same diet.  One third were given a small amount of Resveratrol (.005%), another one third a higher amount of Resveratrol (.02%) and the final third were given an anti-diabetic medication Avandia.  After six weeks, the mice were studied.  Both Resveratrol groups had a lower Hemoglobin A1c and higher insulin levels..  They also had lower triglycerides.  The conclusion was that Resveratrol was more effective than Avandia as a treatment for diabetes.
Neurochem Res 2011 Dec pp 2352-62

DIABETES  From the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad, India comes a study.  Fructose-fed insulin resistant rats were given either Resveratrol or metformin (Glucophage).  Both groups had a significant normalization of blood sugar, triglycerides and uric acid.  The difference was that the Resveratrol group showed a marked insulin sensitizing action compared to the glucophage group.  The conclusion was that "Resveratrol is more effective than metformin in improving insulin sensitivity."
Pharmacol Res 2012 May

You may have noticed that most of these papers are non-US.  Many parts of the world are more open to non-traditional "natural" approaches to disease.  In the AUS much of the research is funded, right or wrong, by "Big Pharma", and that involves profit motives and government regulation.  Regardless of the source of the research, it looks like Resveratrol, the major ingredient in Shaklee's Vivix, will be around for a long time.