Resveratrol (rez-VER-a-trol) is a natural substance
found in many plants, and especially concentrated
in grape seeds and the roots of a plant called
Japanese knotweed (Latin name polygonum cuspidatum,
in case you want to look it up!)
In the human body as well as in plants, resveratrol has
some health-promoting properties which can make it a
valuable addition to the diet. Researchers report that
it can help against cancer, heart-disease and possibly
some neurodegenerative diseases (like Alzheimers). It is also capable of regulating insulin and glucose levels in mice with a high-fat diet, which is very hopeful for humans trying to get their blood-sugar levels under control and lose weight comfortably.
There's some indication that resveratrol may act upon the hormone systems to regulate estrogen and/or testosterone levels.
Resveratrol is also one of the substances found in red wine which for a while researchers thought was the key to the 'French paradox' - how the French can eat so much fatty food and suffer so little from heart disease.
The difficulty with that argument is that you'd have to drink litres and litres of red wine at a time to get enough resveratrol to make a real difference - by which time you'd probably be dead of alcohol poisoning …
Step in resveratrol capsules. Resveratrol supplements in capsule form have come to fame from research and media exposure including, you guessed it, Oprah. The capsules contain a concentrated extract from grape seeds or Japanese knotweed so that you get a suitably high dose of the beneficial ingredient.
Two things to note: the quantity of resveratrol varies widely from supplement to supplement - so make sure you know how much you want and how much you're getting. Secondly, you might want to think about the fact that resveratrol is broken down into other substances by the intestines and liver. In the lab, resveratrol is tested in vitro - in test-tubes, which don't digest the resveratrol - so the results they get with smaller doses may not be the same as the ones that happen in the body!
The good thing is that the best way of getting resveratrol into your system is easy - you can do it by holding or swishing the supplement in the mouth, so the resveratrol goes directly through the delicate mucous membranes in the mouth into the bloodstream and from there into the tissues where it can do most good.
All in all, resveratrol looks like a good thing that's probably here to stay, and which in combination with a healthy diet and other appropriate supplementation can help not just to lose weight but also to maintain excellent health.
