According to Harvard and MIT researchers, we are slowly closing in on diseases such as Alzheimer’s with some cutting edge research on the SIRT1 gene, which is activated by the naturally occurring compound, resveratrol. Using resveratrol extracted from red wine, researchers have shown that it extends life-span, and now they are finding evidence of its neuroprotective abilities in mice. The mice that received resveratrol also showed a reduced death rate and a measured increase in neuronal restoration.

If the research by to Harvard and MIT teams have anything to go by, then the implications that resveratrol has on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease are potentially huge.

However there is still some challenges regarding the effects of resveratrol on the brain and that is its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. The mice in this study actually had resveratrol injected directly into their brain. Although this is still a hurdle to overcome by researchers, it still wont diminish the other positive effects that resveratrol has been seen to have in the labratory.

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Research shows that resveratrol, found in red wine, actually lowers the amount of amyloid-beta peptides which can cause Alzheimer’s Disease. This may also somehow explain the evidence showing the link between lower leves of dementia and red wine drinkers.

Levels of amyloid-beta in cells treated with resveratrol were much lower than those in cells which were not treated with resveratrol. Researchers are now trying to work out the mechanism in which resveratrol actually works in an attempt to develop new pharmaceuticals which act on the same mechanisms to that of resveratrol.

See the video of resveratrol researchers below.

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A study from the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers have suggested that resveratrol seems to promotes a pathway that facilitates the clearing of the building block for plaque formation which often build up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients

The research team studied several different antioxidants found in red wine by adding them to amyloid. Many of the antioxidants had no effect, however resveratrol did in fact clear the amyloid away. The co-author of the study hoped that resveratrol could be used to model new drugs that could hopefully treat Alzheimer’s Disease

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