Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that steals people of their ability to recall and execute basic tasks, such as eating and dressing. There are no meds to subdue or correct this tragic and terminal disease.
Preventing the creation of fibrils and unwinding them once they congregate into plaques are the present concentration of efforts to fight this disease that attacks brain organisms. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, over five million people in the United States, alone, suffer from this disease.

The results from the experiment, which was published recently on the internet in the journal Neurotoxicology, concur with previous human epidemiology experiments that associate regular red wine consumption with a reduction in risk of developing dementia.

Scientists studied resveratrol’s effects on fibrils by adding one type of beta-amyloid (Aβ42) with it and then looking for protein aggregation. They discovered that the larger the dosage of resveratrol, the smaller the quantity of aggregation. Resveratrol dramatically decreased the aggregation by as much as ninety percent.
Resveratrol also triggered the beta-amyloid fibrils to break apart, suggesting it may have the probability to destroy plaque that has already formed.

Though amyloid plaques are a unique aspect of Alzheimer’s disease, it is not totally transparent how these plaques foment the dementia associated with the disease. There is some signs that the fibrils that aggregate into the distinctive plaques are not as toxic to the brain than the intermediate compounds called oligomers. Resveratrol didn’t reduce the creation of oligomers, although the researchers saw some evidence that resveratrol could inhibit their toxic affect on cells.

1) Not all red wines contain resveratrol
2) The amount varies among those which do have resveratrol
3) Resveratrol content in wine will oxidize in approximately 4 hours after opening so people who re-cork and
use at a later date are fooling themselves that they are getting the resveratrol benefits they think.
4) The amount of between 1-3 mgs in a full bottle if a wine does, in fact, contain resveratrol, is insufficient for many of the biological activities, according to some researchers based on “our findings, people might need to drink about three liters of red wine each day to get sufficient resveratrol — about 15 milligrams — for its biological effects,” Zhai says in a news release published on WebMD.com

Getting the correct resveratrol dose is important. Too much is a problem and too little from wine doesn’t reach a therapeutic level. Of course polyphenols are healthy and wine has shown to be effective in cardio and general overall health. “The French Paradox” – French people eating a rich diet have lower heart attack risk due to the red wine they consume daily – has made a lot of headlines, but it has to be taken into account that in France, the wine is part of the daily culture and the wines are grown according to strict regulations as to fertilizers etc. which leaves them with a fair amount of resveratrol.

Plants produce resveratrol to protect themselves from environmental and biological stresses. If they aren’t threatened however, there is very little resveratrol in the grape and hence, the wine.

If you drink a Shiraz from Australia for instance, there is very little resveratrol content in the wine. This is because in a hot dry climate, there is little chance of infection from pathogens (fungus) so the plant doesn’t produce any appreciable amount of resveratrol and hence the wine hardly has any at all.

If you drink a Burgandy wine from France (pinot grape) or Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley, OR there is a very real chance of infection so the plant defends itself by producing resveratrol.

The guesswork involved in all this would make you into a junior lab technician and this is why supplements are a good way to get an even daily dose of resveratrol.

Also, some people can’t drink (red) wine or don’t want the sugars or sulfides and again you don’t get the full biological activity.

Taking a resveratrol supplement daily is a much easier and consistant way of getting the benefits that resveratrol seems to offer based on all the research.

In the first resveratrol study, researchers from the Inonu University Medical Faculty and Turgut Ozal Medical Center in Malatya, Turkey studied the effect that Resveratrol had on inhibiting the development of cataracts that were induced in lab rats.

48 rat pups were separated into 3 treatment groups: #1 – control group injected with a normal saline ethanol solution; Group #2 was injected sodium selenite (30 nmol/g body wt); and Group #3 was given sodium selenite plus resveratrol (40 mg/kg). On day 21, cataract development was graded by slit-lamp examination and photography. Encapsulated lenses and erythrocytes were analyzed for reduced glutathione (GSH) and malondialdehyde (MDA), a marker of lipid peroxidation.

The results showed that the control group’s lenses (group 1) were clear. In group 2, all rats developed cataracts (grade 3-grade 6), whereas in group 3, only 9 of 16 rats developed cataracts (grade 2-grade 3). The difference of cataract frequency between group # 2 and #3 was statistically significant (p<0.05). Group 3 lenses and erythrocytes had higher mean GSH and lower mean MDA levels than those in group 2 (p<0.05)

The researchers concluded from their study that Resveratrol suppressed sodium selenite-induced oxidative stress and cataract formation in rats. This preventative effect was supported by greater GSH and lower MDA in lens and erythrocytes. The presence of oxidative stress in selenite cataract development and its prevention by resveratrol support the possibility that high natural consumption of resveratrol in food can help prevent human senile cataract.

In the second study by researchers from Ohio State University, the scientists found that Resveratrol reduced the oxidation and growth of human retinal pigment epithelial(RPE) cells.

The researchers hypothesized that resveratrol, a red wine polyphenol, may be responsible, in part, for the health benefits of moderate red wine consumption on retinal disease. To test their theory, the antioxidant and antiproliferative effects of resveratrol were examined in a human RPE cell line.

The treatment of the cells included 50 and 100_mol/L Resveratrol. Both quantities significantly decreased the proliferation of RPE cells by10% and 25%, respectively (P < 0.05). In addition, the reduction in RPE cells was not associated with resveratrol-induced cytotoxicity.

Resveratrol (100 _mol/L) inhibited basal and H2O2-induced intracellular oxidation and protected RPE cells from H2O2-induced cell death. The observed reduction in cell proliferation was associated with inhibition of mitogen activated protein kinase/ERK (MEK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK 1/2) activities at concentrations of resveratrol as low as 5 _mol/L. Their findings offer that resveratrol can decrease oxidative stress and hyperproliferation of the RPE.

They concluded that the evidence suggests that moderate wine consumption and antioxidant-rich diets(and likely Resveratrol supplementation – edit.) may protect against age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly. Development of AMD and other retinal diseases, such as proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), is associated with oxidative stress in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a cell layer responsible for maintaining the health of the retina by providing structural and nutritional support.

Lindsay Brown, associate professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland and author of the research says “The breadth of benefits is remarkable – cancer prevention, protection of the heart and brain from damage, reducing age-related diseases such as inflammation, reversing diabetes and obesity, and many more.”

“It has long been a question as to how such a simple compound could have these effects but now the puzzle is becoming clearer with the discovery of the pathways, especially the sirtuins, a family of enzymes that regulate the production of cellular components by the nucleus.

The major points to the study established the following:

Resveratrol exhibits therapeutic potential for cancer chemo-prevention as well as cardio-protection. Brown states “It sounds contradictory that a single compound can benefit the heart by preventing damage to cells, yet prevent cancer by causing cell death,.”The most likely explanation is that low concentrations of Resveratrol activate survival mechanisms of cells while high concentrations turn on the in-built death signals in these cells.”

Resveratrol may inhibit age-related disorders, like neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and inflammation. Brown says “The simplest explanation is that resveratrol turns on the cell’s own survival pathways, preventing damage to individual cells,”. “Further mechanisms help, including removing very reactive oxidants in the body and improving blood supply to cells.”

Low doses of resveratrol increase cellular survival as a function of cardio- and neuro-protection, while high Resveratrol doses increase cell death. “The key difference is probably the result of activation of the sirtuins in the nucleus,” said Brown. “Low activation reverses age-associated changes, while high activation increases the process of apoptosis or programmed cell death to remove cellular debris. Similar changes are seen with low-dose versus high-dose resveratrol: low-dose resveratrol produces cellular protection and reduces damage, while high-dose resveratrol prevents cancers,” Said Brown.

These findings seem to point to resveratrol’s dual role in both maintaining health blood flow and heart health when taken in lower doses, while also exhibiting anti-cancer ant-tumor qualities in larger doses.
Final notes made by Stephen Taylor, from the University of Queensland Pharmacology department, is that red wine Resveratrol is largely inactivated by the digestive processes in the stomach and liver before it reaches the blood stream. So, he concludes that the biological effects could be even more profound with greater bioavailability – this suggests the possible potency of Resveratrol supplements that deliver Resveratrol in capsules, that can pass through the digestive process without dissolving rapidly, may be a better source of Resveratrol than tablet or powders.