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Resveratrol Controls Fat Metabolism and More​

Resveratrol is used to control estrogen and hopefully extend lifespan, but a new paper shows it also decreases waist size.​

Resveratrol is mainly known for minimizing negative estrogen effects and maximizing natural testosterone. But it’s also thought to extend lifespan because it activates certain proteins that have positive effects on the aging process. And since wine contains resveratrol, many people use that as an excuse for tossing back a few glasses each night.

The problem? Resveratrol's positive effects are heavily reliant on dosage. Assuming the average red wine contains 1.0 milligram of resveratrol per glass (the range is 0.03 mg. to 1.07 mg.), you'd have to drink around 500 glasses, every day, to reap resveratrol's alleged life-extending effects. Um, don't do that.

Real Therapeutic Supplementation​

Minuscule amounts of resveratrol and other polyphenols are indeed good for you. It's just that people confuse general, long-term health effects with specific therapeutic effects. For example, taking an 80 mg. baby aspirin confers some healthful effects, like making it harder to develop colon cancer. But if you want to take aspirin to address a headache, you need a big dosage.

It's the same with resveratrol. Taking small amounts, like that contained in a glass of wine, is healthful in the long run. But if you want to use resveratrol to achieve a specific outcome, like extending lifespan, inhibiting aromatase (the enzyme responsible for converting testosterone into estrogen) inhibition, or reducing body fat, you need to take more than you'd find in a glass of wine or handful of grapes. You'd need to take a resveratrol supplement.

Whether resveratrol really extends lifespan is hard to prove in human studies. But the other beneficial effects are easier to prove, and a recent meta-analysis presents some pretty strong evidence.

What the Study Found​

Researchers combed through the databases looking for resveratrol-relevant studies and found 25 articles. They found that varying doses of resveratrol (from 100 mg. to 1,000 mg.) administered daily in durations ranging from one month to six months had these effects:

• Significant decrease in waist circumference.
• Significant decrease in hemoglobin A1c. (The A1c is a blood test that measures your average blood sugar over three months.)
• Significant decrease in total cholesterol.

Resveratrol, however, didn't seem to affect leptin and adiponectin levels, two cytokines that play a complementary role in fat metabolism and body weight regulation. That means that the beneficial effects were caused by something else.




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How Did Resveratrol Do All That?​

Resveratrol supplementation exerts anti-obesity effects and improves metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, undesirable cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and excess body fat around the waist.

How exactly it does all that is up for scientific conjecture. True, resveratrol is a natural antioxidant, but so is just about anything that comes from a plant. A more plausible explanation, first suggested by Zhang (2019), is that the beneficial effects of resveratrol are related to changes "in the expression of several lipid metabolism-related microRNAs and genes."

Another researcher tossed out another equally plausible mechanism for resveratrol's effects on metabolism. He thought that the polyphenol improved gut immune response and microbiota function.

People carrying the right amounts and kinds of gut microbes tend to lose body fat for a couple of reasons. Firstly, certain beneficial gut microbes produce enzymes that help break down complex carbs into simple sugars, making them easier to digest and less likely to take up residence on your waistline. Further, certain bacteria produce higher levels of short-chain fatty acids that reduce inflammation and seem to facilitate fat loss.

We don't know if that's the case with the meta-study, but the effects certainly jibe with those findings.

How to Use This Info​

The researchers here are seeing the results of this meta-study through glasses where one lens looks at obesity and the other diabetes. That was clear in their conclusion: "Resveratrol has a dramatic impact on regulating lipid and glucose metabolism, and the major clinical value of resveratrol intake is for obese and diabetic patients."

But do these results have any implications for the non-obese or non-diabetic – the person who just wants a little help keeping body fat levels low? Probably.

Certainly not all, if any, of the 1,171 collective participants in the 25 studies were diabetic or even obese, so the evidence suggests that resveratrol supplementation supports fat metabolism, even in healthy humans who just want a little help in keeping a trim waistline.

While the studies they compiled used dosages ranging from 100 mg. to 1,000 mg., taking any more than 600 mg. a day isn't likely to confer any additional benefits.

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