A USDA researcher finds resveratrol boosts blood vessel growth around tumors.
Wang works at the ARS Diet, Genomics and Immunology Laboratory, part of the Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center. He published a complementary cell-culture and animal-model study showing that concentrations of resveratrol—a highly bioactive compound found in grapes and other plant foods—actually turned out to be a double-edged sword when it came to mitigating cancer risk.
First, Wang exposed human prostate cancer cells to resveratrol and found that it inhibited the cells' growth. He further tested the cells' gene expression. Then Wang tested the effects of resveratrol on a group of laboratory animals that had sex-hormone-dependent tumor cells.
Half of those animals were fed a daily diet that included 3 to 6 milligrams of purified resveratrol (equal to roughly the amount in five glasses of wine or grape juice). At first, the tumor cells in the resveratrol-fed lab animals grew slower. But as the animals continued to consume resveratrol, there was an increase in blood vessels developing around the tumors of the resveratrol-fed animals, effectively setting up a system of feeding the tumors.
Blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) is key to enabling tumors to grow. In fact, many research labs work on development of anti-angiogenesis compounds to inhibit tumor growth.
Resveratrol still might cut all-cause mortality in humans. But that remains to be proven.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2010 August 11 10:09 PM Aging Diet Resveratrol |
USDA? Please. Can't we find something run by someone with at least a shred of credibility? The USDA gives people money not to plant crops on their land. Not science.
This seems par the course for current work in the field. Resveratrol is a promiscuous organic molecule which likely hits many targets; with differential results dependent on the specific implementation in different regulatory networks, in different tissues, etc. This is what happens when you evolve in a box, common signals can be reused for different functions. SIRT1 is likely to be the same, with the connections between them (resveratrol/SRT501, SIRT1) tenuous and likely dependent on intermediaries such as AMPK.
And the USDA insult is ridiculous.
Another example of the FDA trying to limit preventative health and, funding ,encouraging, and approving long term treatment of symptoms. Why would the FDA have a dog in the fight unless Big Pharma needs the vitamin and supplement market artificially depressed for the long tern growth of the pharmaceutical industry. Unhealthy people with manageable long term treatments are the key to Big Pharma's long term profits. Cures and preventative care cuts into profits , so I view the results with a jaundiced eye.