Resveratrol and bone health and microgravity during long space voyages

[cdev]

Its a rat exercise mimetic! Isn't this cool?  (It also may help repair joints.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21715682

Resveratrol prevents the wasting disorders of mechanical unloading by acting as a physical exercise mimetic in the rat.


Momken I1, Stevens L, Bergouignan A, Desplanches D, Rudwill F, Chery I, Zahariev A, Zahn S, Stein TP, Sebedio JL, Pujos-Guillot E, Falempin M, Simon C, Coxam V, Andrianjafiniony T, Gauquelin-Koch G, Picquet F, Blanc S.

Abstract

Long-term spaceflight induces hypokinesia and hypodynamia, which, along microgravity per se, result in a number of significant physiological alterations, such as muscle atrophy, force reduction, insulin resistance, substrate use shift from fats to carbohydrates, and bone loss. Each of these adaptations could turn to serious health deterioration during the long-term spaceflight needed for planetary exploration. We hypothesized that resveratrol (RES), a natural polyphenol, could be used as a nutritional countermeasure to prevent muscle metabolic and bone adaptations to 15 d of rat hindlimb unloading. RES treatment maintained a net protein balance, soleus muscle mass, and soleus muscle maximal force contraction. RES also fully maintained soleus mitochondrial capacity to oxidize palmitoyl-carnitine and reversed the decrease of the glutathione vs. glutathione disulfide ratio, a biomarker of oxidative stress. At the molecular level, the protein content of Sirt-1 and COXIV in soleus muscle was also preserved. RES further protected whole-body insulin sensitivity and lipid trafficking and oxidation, and this was likely associated with the maintained expression of FAT/CD36, CPT-1, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) in muscle. Finally, chronic RES supplementation maintained the bone mineral density and strength of the femur. For the first time, we report a simple countermeasure that prevents the deleterious adaptations of the major physiological functions affected by mechanical unloading. RES could thus be envisaged as a nutritional countermeasure for spaceflight but remains to be tested in humans.

PMID:
    21715682
DOI:
    10.1096/fj.10-177295

    [Indexed for MEDLINE]

[particleman]

I have been taking a supplement with resveratrol and a bunch of other stuff for a few years now. Changed my life

[Buriedcode]

Looks interesting.

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/resveratrol-reason-for-skepticism/

[cdev]

Thats how the health benefits were discovered, a statistical anomaly - a particular region had substantially lower rates of cardiovascular disease despite having a very rich "Mediterranean" cuisine.

Fortunately my country produces great quantities of resveratrol... well in wine 

Actually, a great many phytochemicals, not just resveratrol, have proven their worth many times over in helping prevent a great many diseases.

We used to get a lot more of these beneficial nutrients in our diets but the food many people eat today is grown and processed in ways that have led to our exposure to many beneficial nutrients being much reduced.

Also several of the beneficial effects were discovered, like the above, because the people in one region or another had a statistically obvious lower rate of some common health problem.

That is also the case with curcumin and Alzheimers, BTW. It seems to prevent Alzheimers disease, and some curcuminoids may also be useful in treating it.

I'll try to find a good example of a list of all the phytonutrients currently known to be beneficial. It would be a very long list.

One good source of info on nutrition is https://ajcn.org.

There are a great many other good sources of information as well. It helps to suck in as much info as you can, learning what sources are more likely to be useful, rather than applying any one strategy. Unfortunately, lots of papers are questionable, or lack any kind of peer review. Also sometimes, especially when well entrenched interests might be involved, some 'reputable' 'experts' are wrong too, or seem to have some hidden agenda. Sometimes questions are not so easily answered right away by consulting the literature. Science always has open questions. They tend to be resolved by anomalies where existing knowledge is inconsistent and doesn't explain things that well. Thats what makes it so interesting.