What are the health benefits of Resveratrol? Resveratrol is a plant-based antioxidant with strong anti-inflammatory properties.
Plants produce it in response to stress, or injury or when the plant is under attack by pathogens, such as bacteria or fungi. Resveratrol protects them.
As you might already know, the top food sources of Resveratrol are red wine, grapes, and berries.
Resveratrol is mostly concentrated in the skins and seeds of these berries and grapes.
Since red wine fermentation directly involves these parts of the grape, it explains why we can find such a high concentration of resveratrol in it.
You can also find it as a dietary supplement.
- Resveratrol supplements could lower your blood pressure
Blood pressure typically goes up with age, as arteries become stiff. When blood pressure is high, it’s a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Thanks to its antioxidant properties, Resveratrol could be a promising supplement for lowering blood pressure.
A scientific report from 2015 concluded that high doses of Resveratrol can help reduce blood pressure by boosting the production of nitric oxide, which causes blood vessels to eventually relax.
- Resveratrol supplements could reduce your blood cholesterol levels
In 2016, a study conducted in mice showed that Resveratrol could improve the overall cardiovascular functions.
To run this experiment, scientists fed these mice a high fat diet. Then they did 2 groups, and one of them was given Resveratrol supplements daily. They observed that the blood cholesterol level in the group with Resveratrol was decreasing, unlike the other group. They also observe that these mice were losing weight while taking Resveratrol.
Scientists explained the overall cardiovascular health benefits of Resveratrol by its antioxidant properties.
Thanks to that, Resveratrol decreases cholesterol oxidation and also inhibits cholesterol production. And since cholesterol oxidation contributes to plaque buildup in artery walls which in turn increases blood pressure, Resveratrol supplements could lower the incidence of cardiovascular diseases.
- Resveratrol supplements could increase the lifespan
Increasing lifespan and slowing down aging is one of the most exciting research fields. And in this regard, Resveratrol has been studied extensively.
Researchers found that Resveratrol could turn off some genes involved in aging-related diseases and some scientific reviews even show that Resveratrol supplements can increase the lifespan in 60% of the animals tested.
They explain these results by the fact that Resveratrol can activate enzymes called Sirtuins and those Sirtuins are crucial when it comes to aging.
They can fix the DNA damage occurring in your cells, and therefore prevent many diseases, and even slow down aging in animal studies.
Scientists are now trying to understand if Resveratrol could have a similar effect on humans, so let’s follow up closely on that.
- Resveratrol supplements can protect from cognitive decline
Several studies already showed that Resveratrol can protect your brain from cognitive decline.
Thanks to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, Resveratrol could interfere with beta-amyloids, which are small protein fragments involved in Alzheimer’s disease.
Resveratrol could indeed protect your brain cells from damage.
More research is still needed to understand how it works but results seem promising so far.
- Resveratrol supplements might decrease your risk of developing type 2 diabetes
Scientists think that Resveratrol therapy might benefit people with diabetes in the future because Resveratrol can increase insulin sensitivity and prevent complications from diabetes.
First, some scientific reports claim that Resveratrol might protect from oxidative stress, thanks to its antioxidant property.
Secondly, Resveratrol would also decrease inflammation, and therefore prevent inflammatory chronic diseases often associated with diabetes.
Finally, Resveratrol would enhance glucose metabolism, and eventually help drop blood sugar levels, to eventually help people suffering from diabetes.
- Resveratrol supplements could help with arthritis
Arthritis is a common indication referring to joint pain or joint disease. It can be caused by inflammation or simply wear and tear of joint cartilages. It usually becomes worse with aging and can eventually lead to loss of mobility.
To avoid that, Resveratrol has been studied as a way to treat and prevent joint pain for many years.
Researchers found that this supplement could protect joints by decreasing joint inflammation and preventing cartilage breakdown. Thanks to these amazing anti-inflammatory properties, Resveratrol could benefit people suffering from arthritis.
- Resveratrol supplements might inhibit cancer cells
Resveratrol has been found to slow down the proliferation of many human cancer cell lines, such as breast, prostate, stomach, or colon cancers for example.
Indeed, Resveratrol could help prevent the development of cancer by inhibiting cancer growth and triggering cancer cell death.
This potential anti-cancer effect could be due to its anti-inflammatory properties. Since long-term inflammation is known to stimulate cancer development, by reducing inflammation Resveratrol would help with cancer prevention.