Resveratrol, a naturally-occurring antioxidant found in wine, grapes, and chocolate, halts the decline of a key biomarker found in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, according to research published this week by the journal Neurology.
In what they are calling the largest nationwide clinical trial to ever study high-dose resveratrol use in people with the neurodegenerative condition, Dr. R. Scott Turner, director of the Memory Disorders Program at Georgetown University Medical Center and his colleagues found that use of the substance resulted in higher amyloid-beta protein levels in a patient’s spinal fluid.
Dr. Turner’s team conducted a randomized, phase II, placebo-controlled, and double-blind clinical trial involving patients with mild to moderate dementia due to Alzheimer’s. The study involved 119 patients and lasted one year. It found that when taken in concentrated doses, resveratrol may be able to slow down the progression of this chronic, incurable disease.
Don’t expect to see these kinds of results by drinking an extra glass of wine or snacking on a candy bar here or there, however – the patients involved in the study were given one gram of the antioxidant by mouth twice daily. In order to get such a high dose of resveratrol from red wine, a person would have to drink nearly 1,000 bottles per day, according to CNN.com.
Wait… isn’t more amyloid-beta a bad thing for Alzheimer’s patients?
While it is true that accumulation of amyloid-beta in a person’s brain is one of the hallmarks of the disease, Alzheimer’s patients actually have lower levels of the protein in other parts of their bodies, CNN.com explained. The findings of the Georgetown study suggest that resveratrol may help maintain the natural balance of amyloid-beta and prevent build-up in the brain.
Dr. Turner and his co-authors reported that people who were treated with increasing doses of the substance over a 12 month period showed little to no change in amyloid-beta40 (Abeta40) levels in blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Conversely, those who received placebos experienced a decline in their Abeta40 levels in comparison to readings taken at the beginning of the experiment.
“A decrease in Abeta40 is seen as dementia worsens and Alzheimer’s disease progresses,” said Dr. Turner. “Still, we can’t conclude from this study that the effects of resveratrol treatment are beneficial. It does appear that resveratrol was able to penetrate the blood brain barrier, which is an important observation. Resveratrol was measured in both blood and cerebrospinal fluid.”
He told CNN that the findings were “encouraging enough” to warrant a larger-scale clinical trial, “because we showed that it is safe and does have significant effects on Alzheimer’s biomarkers.” For now, he said, the best way to get the antioxidant is through diet, but the effects will likely be limited. One glass of red wine per day may help those with mild Alzheimer’s, he noted.
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