FoodBanter.com - Red Wine Protects Mice from Obesity, Diabetes

Red Wine Protects Mice from Obesity, Diabetes

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; 2:34 PM

A component of red wine recently shown to help lab mice live longer also
protects animals from obesity and diabetes, researchers reported today.

The new research helps confirm and extend the possible benefits of the
substance, resveratrol, and offers new insight into how it works--apparently
by revving up the metabolism to make muscles burn more energy and work more
efficiently. Mice fed large doses could run twice as far as normal.

In addition, the scientists for the first time produced evidence linking the
biological pathway activated by the substance to humans, showing that the
same genetic switch resveratrol mimics seems to naturally endow some people
with faster metabolisms.

"It's very exciting," said Johan Auwerx, a professor of medicine at the
Institute for Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Biology in Strasbourg,
France, who led the research being published in the journal Cell. "This
compound could have many applications--treating obesity and diabetes,
improving human endurance, helping the frail. There's a lot of potential."

Auwerx and other researchers cautioned much more research is needed to study
the compound and similar agents, especially to see if the approach is safe
for people. Humans would have to take hundreds of resveratrol pills sold in
health food stores or drink hundreds of glasses of wine a day to get
equivalent levels of the substance tested on the mice, neither of which
would be safe. But the new research adds to the growing enthusiasm about the
approach, experts said.

"This is the first example of a drug that can apparently affect the whole
aging process, not just this disease or that disease, but the mechanisms
that allow these diseases to occur," said Felipe Sierra of the National
Institute on Aging.

Others agreed.

"The idea of giving someone anything to improve their longevity until very
recently would have been considered snake oil or crockery," said Stephen L.
Helfand of Brown University. "But here we are possibly being able to move
out of the laboratory from extending the lives of flies, worms and mice to
humans a lot sooner than we thought."

Resveratrol is found in red wine, grapes and other foods, including peanuts.
Scientists suspect it may help explain why French people have fewer heart
attacks despite their high-fat diets, and why eating a very low-calorie diet
can extend the life spans of many species.

Researchers recently demonstrated resveratrol did the same thing for mammals
in a study involving laboratory mice. High doses of the compound neutralized
the ill effects of a high-fat, high-calorie diet, extending the animals'
life spans and preventing adverse effects on their livers and hearts.

In the new research, researchers fed mice even higher dosages--10 times
higher-- along with a high-fat, high-calorie diet. Resveratrol significantly
reduced the animals' chances of becoming obese and of developing early signs
of diabetes. The mice appeared to experience no adverse side effects.

Additional experiments on the animals' cells indicate the substance works by
increasing the activity of an enzyme known as SIRT1, boosting the number and
activity of structures inside cells called mitochondria, the researchers
said. Mitochondria are like power plants inside cells, burning fat and
providing energy. They tend to get revved up by exercise, and deteriorate
with age. The mice fed resveratrol had more efficient muscle tissue, sharply
hiking their endurance

"In the elderly, many of the disorders that occur with aging occur because
of muscle weakness," Helfand said. "This makes you wonder what would happen
if you took an older individual and revved up their mitochondria with
resveratrol. You could imagine that it could have a profound positive effect
on their health."

Auwerx also wondered whether the substance might be abused by professional
athletes. "That could be the illicit use of these compounds -- as
performance boosters," he said.

In addition to the mouse experiments, the researchers also produced evidence
supporting the theory that SIRT1 plays a key role in longevity in humans in
an accompanying analysis of 123 Finnish adults. The subjects born with
certain variations of the SIRT1 gene had faster metabolisms, naturally
burning energy more efficiently, indicating the same pathway works in humans
too.

"We've all seen people who are thin no matter what they eat or do -- that
have good metabolisms versus bad. This may help explain that," said
Christoph Westphal, the CEO of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass.,
which sponsored and helped conduct the study as part of its efforts to
develop drugs based on the approach.

The company is already testing a potent version of resveratrol on diabetic
humans, and hopes to eventually test it and similar compounds as a treatment
for a variety of diseases.

"We are targeting a gene that controls the aging process," Westphal said.
"Many diseases have a link to the aging process. So these kinds of drugs
clearly have the potential to treat several diseases of aging. It's very
exciting."

Other researchers said the new work was interesting, but remained cautious,
particularly about making the link to SIRT1.

"I think that's part of the story, but that it would be a mistake to think
that's all that's going on," said Matt Kaeberlein of the University of
Washington.

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It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know
for sure, that just ain't so.

Mark Twain