When I say health maintainance, I mean figting the diseases of ageing (i.e. not getting diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's etc. and thus living longer). Also, I would not say what Sirtris is doing is misconduct from a business standpoint. They just arn't telling the whole story. They are intentionally leaving the lower dosage resveratrol trials out. Every trial reports on 2 to 5 grams of resveratrol consumed; they have intentionally set the bar very high (and have avoided publishing the lower dosage studies). It is a way to make readers and the media believe that resveratrol is not that powerful and a way to suggest that their proprietary drugs were the solution. Very clever.
Eventually (even though Sirtis has hired many of the resveratrol scientists) studies from other scientists will prove once and for all that a lower does is effective for humans (this has already happened in mice - the effective human equivalent to replicate caloric restriction is around 400 mg per day as opposed to 2 grams per day - all things being equal). All the while, this is giving Sirtris a time cushion. The more Sirtis can stall the widespread adoption of resveratrol, the better it will be able to postion it's drugs that are not available because they have to pass FDA approval. All the while, the message is not getting out to the gernaral population. All the while, people are missing the benefits of resveratrol. Have you noticed how Sirtris is NOW saying you would have to drink a few gallons of wine to get the benefits of resveratrol - it used to be (not less than a year ago) 1000 bottles was what it would take. They realized what they were saying was not true - they have drasticlly lowered the required effective dosage as seen by this. All of this is very choreographed.
Cheers, Ringo
The problem is that all other things are
not equal between mice and men. Humans have far more effective enzymes for metabolizing phytochemicals than do mice. This was discussed in the thread on maximizing resveratrol effectiveness over a year ago. To summarize the conclusions, humans need much higher equivalent doses than do rodents. Moreover, human cytochrome enzymes differ such that certain ethnic groups, such as east Asians, would need less resveratrol than Caucasians to achieve similar blood serum levels. Sirtris did publish some studies at 2.5 grams rather than 5 grams in their diabetes study. 2.5 grams did have an effect, but less than 5 grams.
While under-a- gram doses may have some beneficial effects, it won't be enough to activate sirtuin genes and get those beneficial effects.
The graphs I've seen on sirtuin activation by Sirtris' proprietary compounds, indicates that while they preferentially activate Sirt1, they are no more effective than resveratrol at activating Sirt2 through Sirt7. But for treating specific diseases caused by Sirt1 dysfunction, the compounds could be beneficial. For general life-extension, not so much I think. But relatively high doses will be needed.