Resveratrol - The New CLA??

The past couple weeks resveratrol has been all over the news. It's popularity and the research that has been done on it makes me think if CLA. CLA? You may be thinking "But CLA is a fat and resveratrol is a phytochemical how are they similar? "

The thing is that a lot of the early work (research) on CLA was done in animals (mainly mice/rats). What we found out with more research is that CLA can turn a fat mouse into Mighty Mouse no problem but it doesn't do the same things in humans. I'm not knocking CLA because studies have shown that it can be an effective agent in the fight against body fat at about 3.5g/day but it hasn't worked in humans like it does in mice.

I wonder if resveratrol will be similar. Below is a quote from a recent NY Times article:

"Resveratrol has been shown, in mice, to double their endurance They also have a reduced heart rate and energy-charged muscles, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell. “Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,” author Dr. Auwerx said in an interview.

If this would work in humans this would be incredible! Right? I'm not going to start celebrating quite yet. Plus another thing to mention is that the dosages of resveratrol that they are giving mice are HUGE compared to the average dose of a resveratrol supplement (for humans). In fact the only company that I've found whose product gives a large dose of resveratrol is Rez-V by Biotest. I would guess that if you are looking for the results that they are finding with mice that you would need to take large doses (like they do with mice) and not the small ones found in most supplements.

I'm intrigued by resveratrol. I'm going to start taking it myself. I figure the worst case scenario would be that my health greatly increases. We can sometimes get caught up in all the body composition / performance excitement that has been surrounding resveratrol but forget to realize that resveratrol have been shown to have great health benefits in HUMANS.

And if you're not into taking the supplement....have a glass of red wine. You'll get some resveratrol (not nearly as much as if you supplemented), you'll raise your HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol), but you'll temporally put a stop to fat burning (nobody said it was a perfect world).

Thanks to Aaron W for sending me the NY Times article.

Have a great day (and plan your meals!),
MR