Dear Friends,
Here is Part 2 of the resveratrol interview I did with Dr. Marcia da Silva Pinto, who is the Senior Technical Manager at Lallemand, the maker of Veri-te resveratrol.
In Part 1 we covered the numerous mechanisms in the body that resveratrol can support, why more isn’t necessarily better, and what makes Veri-te resveratrol unique.
Recent research results and key benefits of resveratrol are discussed in Part 2:
Carl Pradelli: Let's now get into some of the scientific findings and benefits that you discovered with Veri-te resveratrol. I think we have to start with what is my favorite study, and I think the landmark study when it comes to resveratrol, which you call the RESHAW study. Can you give the audience an overview of this study?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Human research studies are very important for us to back the ingredient. RESHAW stands for Resveratrol for Healthy Aging in Women. This is the largest and longest clinical study with resveratrol supplementation: 125 postmenopausal women receiving daily two times 75 milligrams for 12 months. We cannot find another study of this length. And also the parameters: cognitive performance, bone health, quality of life. These were reported by the researchers. This study was conducted in Australia, also by Professor Peter Howe, whom I mentioned before, and his team.
Carl Pradelli: If I recall on this one, I think the study actually lasted two years because after one year, you switched the protocols, right?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes.
Carl Pradelli: This structure is interesting because people act as their own control group in a way. But this study is really unique for that length of time.
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes. The 12-month supplementation, and you're right, they switched it. I've been looking at studies and I have never seen this, because researchers usually report the benefit, and that's it. That ends the research study. What they wanted to see is if these benefits were sustained for the 12 months. This is really unique because they could see that all these benefits that these women gained during these 12 months were not just lost and back to zero. It was really interesting.
Carl Pradelli: Absolutely. Just for the men listening, don't worry. Marcia and her team have also done a lot of research for men too. It's not exclusive to women. One of the most interesting findings of Veri-te, and I think in the RESHAW study specifically as well as some others, was that Veri-te was shown to help slow down bone density loss, among other bone health benefits. This was actually done in a couple of studies, both involving men and women, but in RESHAW it was women.
As I mentioned earlier, bone health is an important health concern for a lot of our audience, and so I follow developments in bone health pretty closely. I'm not sure I'd seen anyone prior to Veri-te showing a benefit of resveratrol for bone health before you. Is that right?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Not for this length of study, no. Not humans. Because it's 12 months' supplementation. Of course, bone health is something that you need a longer time to see an effect. It's not something that, in a short study, you'll be able to see. It's very interesting that during the RESHAW study, one of the main challenges with postmenopausal women is because the estrogen levels drop. Of course, because of this, they start having higher risk of fracture.
What the researchers saw is a measure of fracture risk decreased, and also improved the bone mineral density. As you mentioned, we also did some studies with men. Not only women benefit from resveratrol, but also men had important outcomes for bone health, particularly bone mineral density.
Carl Pradelli: Interesting. Essentially, the data showed you were able to slow down bone density loss, and also strengthen bones, which is really ultimately what you want, right?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes.
Carl Pradelli: The bone density is great, but if you have weak bones, that's not so great, right?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Exactly. What the researchers from the RESHAW study also saw was that resveratrol is a phytoestrogen. Because postmenopausal women have a drop in the estrogen level, this is one hypothesis, that resveratrol acts as this phytoestrogen and helps for bone health. But also what they observed was that there was an improvement in microcirculation. It's a combination of mechanisms again, proving that it's not just the antioxidant properties, but beyond this, other mechanisms supporting this benefit.
Carl Pradelli: It really has to be, right? Because there's so many other great botanicals with great antioxidant properties. You would think there has to be some more to it, so I think that makes a lot of sense. Another area that you really have spent some time investigating is brain health and cognitive function. How may Veri-te resveratrol help here?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: During the RESHAW study, they also looked at the cognitive performance of these women, like processing speed, memory, and that helped, improved a lot. What happens? I explained one of the mechanisms of resveratrol, Veri-te in this case, is being a vasoactivator.
The researchers observed that there was an improvement in cerebrovascular function. There was an improvement of blood flow to the brain. Of course, if you have more nutrients reaching the brain, you have more connections with the neurons, everything gets more activated. This was translated and correlated with improvement in processing speed, memory, and many cognitive domains for these postmenopausal women. Usually, there is already a cognitive decline. We don't want to talk like that; it sounds a little bit depressing, but this is a normal aging process. This happens, but there was a benefit from the Veri-te supplementation.
Carl Pradelli: Right. We always say we can't stop our aging process, but we can try to age a little better and more gracefully and help where we can. Certainly the cerebrovascular function support seems like a key part of it because blood flow changes as we age can affect so many parts of the body. Have you done anything yet with respect to men and cognitive function, or was RESHAW the first study?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: RESHAW was the first and women were the focus. I think that at the moment, there is no reason to believe that men would not benefit from the supplementation.
Carl Pradelli: One of the first benefits associated really with resveratrol, which gets back to the French paradox you mentioned earlier, was for cardiovascular and metabolic health. Do you think Veri-te resveratrol can help in this area too?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes, definitely. Cardiovascular will remain forever, let's say, as the key benefit for resveratrol. During the RESHAW study, the researchers looked at so many different parameters. It's very simplistic for me to only talk for a few minutes about RESHAW because it's a huge study. They also looked at cardiometabolic parameters, including blood pressure, insulin utilization, blood glucose levels, and they could see benefits as well.
Carl Pradelli: Again, I think it gets back to what you stated earlier on. Someone may be saying, "Well, geez, how can resveratrol help in all these different ways?" It really gets back to the effects it's having in the body, right? The effects on the cells, the effect on supporting blood flow, of course, the antioxidant activity on oxidative stress. That's it, right?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes. This is a common concern from consumers. They say, "Okay, I understand that resveratrol can do so much, can do so many things, that maybe it doesn't do anything." I always say that — so much that it doesn't do anything. No, because we tend to look in a very simplistic way at the mechanisms. Just remember, every time that you see so many benefits reported for resveratrol, all those mechanisms are happening at the same time.
Sirtuins, as I told you, they're everywhere, so they're being activated. There is a reason behind it to believe that it's working because you know the mechanisms. They're always happening at the same time. I insist on that because we tend to put mechanisms as blocks, isolated. No, they're all together.
Carl Pradelli: I love that. That's a great way of thinking about it. One of the things I recall about the RESHAW study was you looked at effects on quality-of-life parameters and well-being. We hear a lot from women who are in that stage of their life, postmenopausal. They're looking for some support in this area. Can you touch on what you found here?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes. This is one of the main complaints, actually, from postmenopausal women or menopausal women. The parameters: sleep disturbance, they don't sleep well; pain perception; mood. Of course, if you don't sleep well, and you're uncomfortable, your mood is not going to be good, independently of whether you're in menopause or not. The researchers looked into this and used a validated questionnaire that the women had to answer. If you start sleeping better, having less discomfort, your mood improves, and of course, your overall quality of life will improve as well. This is what they observed during the study in those taking Veri-te resveratrol.
Carl Pradelli: Are there any other potential benefits of resveratrol, of Veri-te, that we have not touched on yet, or anything new on the research front that you'd like to share?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: I think we are very excited now with another topic that many like about resveratrol: skin health. We have just completed the skin-health study. This is the first human study with resveratrol as the only key ingredient. We did this search in the literature to look for different studies, and we saw that resveratrol was always combined with other ingredients. We decided to run a study to really show that resveratrol alone is potent for skin health. This is very exciting and new.
Carl Pradelli: That's great news. Did you look at ingestible by itself and then ingestible combined with topical application of Veri-te?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes, we did a big study, actually, 140 women.
Carl Pradelli: Wow.
Marcia da Silva Pinto: That was a big one. Forty-plus years of age. We looked at the different groups. Actually, we split them into four groups. There were people who were taking resveratrol capsules or resveratrol cream. We had a placebo as well, and the combination of the two. But most importantly, all of them received capsules and cream. They didn't know what they were receiving because we needed to make sure that compliance with the study was okay, that there was no bias or anything. All of them received capsules and cream, and it was very exciting.
Carl Pradelli: Yes. Did you stick with your 75 milligrams twice-a-day type of protocol?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes, we did follow this for the beauty from within, the capsules. The participants had to take the capsule in the morning and in the evening, apply the cream in the morning and in the evening. Yes, we followed what we observed before in the RESHAW.
Carl Pradelli: That's great. I'm not sure how much you could share, given I'm not sure if it's published yet, but I assume you looked at things like skin moisturization and maybe appearance or wrinkles and that type of thing. Is that some of the benefits?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Yes, wrinkles, elasticity, and skin pigmentation.
Carl Pradelli: Bones, brain health, cardiovascular and metabolic health, quality of life, and now skin. That's quite the list. Have we missed anything about Veri-te that maybe we have not discussed that you'd like to share?
Marcia da Silva Pinto: We could stay hours and hours here. I think for now, yes, the main benefits we have discussed.
Carl Pradelli: Absolutely. As you said, it's those multiple building blocks working together at the same time that deliver. That's a great way to present it.
As you know, in our TrueResveratrol product, we took your advice and followed the research. We have that 75-milligram serving size, which you take twice a day. Morning and evening would be ideal.
This has been fantastic, Marcia. Really appreciate you taking the time.
Marcia da Silva Pinto: Thank you, and it's always a pleasure.
That concludes the interview, hopefully you found it helpful.
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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