Researchers report that resveratrol, a natural substance found in the skin of grapes, can offset the effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and extend their lifespan significantly.
If humans respond to resveratrol in the same way, then large daily doses could help to curtail the effects of the unhealthy, high-calorie diet contributing to the epidemic of obesity currently sweeping the U.S. and other industrialized nations.
Scientists fed one group of mice a high-fat diet, consisting of 60 percent fat calories. The mice developed signs of incipient diabetes, and began dying early deaths.
A second group of mice was fed an identical diet, but were also given large daily doses of resveratrol (the equivalent, for a human, of the amount that would be found in 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine.)
The mice did put on weight, but they avoided the enlarged livers and high blood glucose and insulin that signal diabetes. The resveratrol-fed mice also lived as long as mice on a healthy diet.
