Ok, I will probably make a post in the next few days detailing all the effects of resveratrol, positive and anecdotally negative, precisely to help give people an idea of what to expect. So, as a minor real quick thing without the plethora of sources I'll have in the main post eventually, here we go:
Acute (possibly noticeable within an immediate to few days/few weeks time span) effect of resveratrol:
-Change in look to more "youthful" appearance couldn't happen this fast, or I find it very hard to believe it could.
-For arthritis, resveratrol greatly reduces the negative effects of arthritis in humans in vivo. This is already known, and one major reason to take resveratrol for those who have any sort of joint issues. It literally promotes healing and regeneration of joint tissue in humans as seen in vivo and ex vivo.
-For diabetes, resveratrol is sort of a "cure". Not really a cure as far as I know, as if you stop taking resveratrol its likely that diabetes will resume, but I don't know for sure. However, while on resveratrol, in humans and mice, it seems to greatly reverse diabetic/insulin insensitive phenotypes. This application of resveratrol's is being directly looked at for commercial use.
-Increased cold resistance. This is a harder one to peg. It's a real effect seen in mice, and quite pronounced. The increase in mitochondrial biogenesis means better thermoregulation, causally; though there may be other ways resveratrol causes this, none that I can think of. How long it'll take this to occur is a different issue, and it's likely a "longer term" effect not acute. But I put it here just because of my experiences.
Longer term (months to years, to life time) effects of resveratrol:
-Change in look to more "youthful" appearance is still unlikely, not impossible of course, and if it happens it happens, but if you are younger (20s-40s) it's very very unlikely (you are already young! How could you look younger? other than enhanced skin glow/health...
maybe, but I have no idea if resveratrol does that in skin yet as I haven't looked). I wouldn't take resveratrol for this purpose, and other than simply slowing or preventing epidermal dysfunction and degeneration due to Sirt1 loss (which is a major deal perhaps), I don't know how it would do this.
-Reduced body weight. Resveratrol does not, by itself, consistently reduce body weight of mice on a high fat diet, but it can prevent weight gain to an extent, and makes it easier to lose weight. Part of this is due to resveratrol's anti-adipocyte nature. Still, resveratrol does a great deal to heal metabolic dysfunction caused by age, diet, and life style; so much so that mice eating the equivalent of a custard pie for every meal on just 22mg/kg of resveratrol live just as long as mice on a healthy diet. Now that is something truly amazing.
-Increased bone density/strength. Quite pronounced in mice. Doesn't mean larger bones, but tougher for sure.
-Increased artery health. Huge, massive difference seen in mice. In this aspect especially, mice on resveratrol are healthier than mice on any sort of diet, including CR. Resveratrol seems capable of stopping age related apoptosis and deterioration of arteries almost completely.
-Increased cardiac health. Resveratrol is able to prevent all age related deterioration of the mouse heart except the increased lag in repolarization (going into diastole) that happens with aging. However, all primary cardiac health parameters are comparable to young mice.
-Possible increased brain growth. There was an article on sciencedaily.com just a few days back about a recent research paper showing how AMPK activation leads to brain growth and maintenance. Inhibiting AMPK decreased rat brains by 30%. Resveratrol activates AMPK as part of the pathways it turns on. So this is a potential effect no one has looked at for resveratrol as far as I know.
-Decreased chance of neurodegeneration. Resveratrol definitely greatly decreases neurodegeneration in mice. That is, it prevents epilepsy (might even be a potential "cure" for this), ALS, MS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in multiple mouse and rat models for those diseases.
-Decreased chance of cancer. This is a possible one. I haven't looked through the literature in awhile to see if anyone has looked at this specifically. But since resveratrol is potent against many types of cancer, from breast cancer to colon, this effect is possible. Moreover, resveratrol protects from radiation, which of course can lead to cancer, so there for sure it can decrease the chance of cancer. Resveratrol does this via its activation of Sirt1, since Sirt1 is an obligatory first responder to double strand DNA damage, necessary for DNA repair.
-Increased muscle strength, endurance, control and coordination. The levels of resveratrol specifically needed for these effects to be extremely pronounced (i.e. literally doubled endurance capacity) in mice are around 400mg/kg. In a human, it's hard to say how much resveratrol would be chronically needed for this -- humans may be more sensitive or less, or equal. None the less, this is linked to the resveratrol induced mitochondrial biogenesis caused by Sirt1's activation of PGC-1alpha. Since a great deal of resveratrol's effects are pathed through PGC-1alpha, there is a great chance this happens even at the modest doses in humans, though of course to varying degrees depending in a dose dependent manner. None the less, this is a long term effect and should build up subtly, not something you may immediately see. Depending on how much mitochondrial biogenesis is needed, this could still be an acute affect at really high doses of resveratrol, but I have my doubts at the moment.
There are more effects of course, and as I said I'll make a huge post with references galore as a repository of all we know of resveratrol's effects so far, when I get more time. I hope this helps people.
BTW: a jumping out of the skin sensation (restlessness?) with Longevinex is likely due to the other factors in that product, like IP6. Resveratrol should not cause such effects as far as I know.
Edited by geddarkstorm, 16 March 2009 - 10:49 PM.