By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness
August 30, 2013
- Does resveratrol REALLY block the effects of exercise?
- The “not-so-significant” results of this recent study
- Why you should take resveratrol every day
I’ve got a bone to pick with some of the new studies that are coming out and the way the media is handling them. It almost seems as though there’s a conspiracy going on to discredit the use of supplements.
We saw it happen recently when researchers mistakenly linked omega-3 fatty acids with prostate cancer. And if you read my analysis of the omega-3 study, you know exactly how absurd all the fuss and hoopla over it was.
Unfortunately, the latest study on resveratrol is a continuation of this trend.
The title of this new study is Resveratrol Blunts the Positive Effects of Exercise Training on Cardiovascular Health in Aged Men. And the news media has been running amuck with it.
If you’ve ready any of the news articles, you’ve probably been swayed by this bit of research. After all, it sounds pretty believable. But when you take a look at the numbers and some of the conclusions drawn from them, the significance is more than a little bit questionable. It’s downright doubtful.
There’s another problem, too. It involves the pool of participants.
You see, the study was quite small. It included 27 men. Fourteen of the men took 250 mg. resveratrol and 13 were given a placebo for eight weeks. And all of them took part in an exercise program.
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Now one of the first things I noticed when I started reading the study is this: None of the men involved in the study had high blood pressure. They didn’t have cardiovascular disease or diabetes. All of them had normal electrocardiograms.
In fact, only two of the participants had any problem at all. These two had high cholesterol which was controlled by medication during the course of the study.
So here we have a group of men who, for all intents and purposes, weren’t at cardiovascular risk to begin with.
Do you know what that means?
The researchers set forth to find out if resveratrol, along with exercise, could improve the cardiovascular health in men who already fell within normal, healthy ranges!
With that in mind, let me share some of the “not-so-significant” results that came out of this study…
It’s easy for the media to announce the results of a study as being “significant,” but you’ll notice most of them don’t include hard numbers to back up these claims.
Sure, they’ll throw out percentages. But when it comes to smaller study sizes (such as in this study) percentages can very easily inflate and obscure the big picture. And that appears to be exactly what happened here.
If you want the facts just take a look at this. After 8 weeks of taking either resveratrol or placebo accompanied with exercise, both groups had…
- A reduction in blood pressure
- Lower levels of LDL cholesterol
- An improvement in their total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratios
- A lower resting heart rate
- Improved VO2Max (lung capacity)
So where’s the discrepancy? Why are the headlines screaming about how resveratrol is destroying the positive effects of exercise?
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It’s in the amount of improvement. But the differences are so small they’re hardly worth mentioning.
For example, you may have read that “the resveratrol group did not experience the positive effects on cholesterol.”
That’s simply not true. In fact, the study clearly states “Blood glucose, total cholesterol (TC) and HDL concentrations were not different between groups and were not changed with training.
So the media must be referring to minor differences in LDL readings. The placebo group showed a reduction of .3 points while the resveratrol group had a .2 point reduction.
Apparently, dropping LDL by .3 points is statistically significant and lowering it by .2 isn’t. And remember – we’re talking about participants that were in the normal range to begin with. I’m not sure what results they expected to see with a group that is “good” to begin with.
You may also have read about the “huge” difference in blood pressure between the groups. A whopping 57% difference! But when you look behind the percentage and discover the real numbers, there really wasn’t much of a difference at all.
In the placebo group mean arterial pressure dropped from 95.3 to 90.8 during the course of the study. That’s 4.5 points. In the resveratrol group it dropped from 96.3 to 93.7 – or 2.6 points.
When you put it in this perspective the significance isn’t quite as significant, is it?
And remember. None of these men had high blood pressure to start with. So the ultimate result is that both groups were able to slightly reduce blood pressure that already fell within a normal range.
I’ll be honest with you. When push comes to shove, I’m not entirely sure this study has any significance at all.
Now I’ll be the first to admit. Most of what we know about the heart-healthy benefits of resveratrol comes from animal studies. But some of these results have been duplicated in small human trials.
For example, in 2010 a group of men and women were given 30, 90 or 270 mg. of resveratrol at weekly intervals. After taking the supplement they showed a pretty big improvement in endothelial function. It also helped increase blood flow. These are two very important factors when it comes to your heart health.
In another study obese men were given 150 mg. of resveratrol for 30 days. At the end of the study glucose levels, triglycerides, blood pressure and markers of inflammation were all reduced while taking resveratrol.
Resveratrol may even help in our fight against cancer. One small human trial showed 500 to 1000 mg. of resveratrol daily reduced tumor cell growth by 5% in colon cancer patients.
With all of this in mind, I’m taking the current study on resveratrol and exercise with a grain of salt.
I still recommend resveratrol to protect your heart, ward off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, reduce inflammation and fight cancer.
And there’s some new research that I’m digging into on a new form of resveratrol that looks very positive. As soon as I’ve got all the details, I’ll let you know about it.
References
Wong RH, et al. Acute resveratrol supplementation improves flow-mediated dilatation in overweight/obese individuals with mildly elevated blood pressure. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2011 Nov;21(11):851-6. Epub 2010 Jul 31.
Timmers S, et al. Calorie restriction-like effects of 30 days of resveratrol supplementation on energy metabolism and metabolic profile in obese humans. Cell Metab. 2011 Nov 2;14(5):612-22.
Patel KR, et al. Clinical pharmacology of resveratrol and its metabolites in colorectal cancer patients. Cancer Res. 2010 Oct 1;70(19):7392-9. Epub 2010 Sep 14
