I love red grapes, blueberries and nuts because they taste great. Now there’s yet another possible health benefit to snacking on grapes and sprinkling blueberries and nuts in my hot oatmeal. Danish researchers recently reported that the powerful polyphenol, resveratrol, decreased the production of certain pro-inflammatory compounds (thought to be linked to the development of metabolic syndrome) in human fat cells. This may have an anti-inflammatory effect and potentially improve the metabolic profile in human obesity.

Does it work?

Back in 2003, resveratrol started gaining attention when Harvard researchers reported resveratrol could activate a particular gene (the one activated during calorie restriction in certain species) and was able to increase the lifespan of yeast cells. Since then, animal studies have continued to link resveratrol to longer lives.  Other studies have reported possible actions from anti-cancer and cardiovascular benefits to anti-diabetes and protection against Alzheimer’s.

These recent encouraging results need to be repeated in humans studies, but in the meantime you can’t go wrong eating rich food sources of resveratrol because you’ll find it in the following whole foods (we all should be eating more whole foods and less processed food anyway):

    * Grape skins and seeds.
    * Grapes and grape juice, particularly red grapes.
    * Red wine and dealcoholized red wine.
    * Blueberries.
    * Nuts and peanuts.

Have you had your resveratrol today?

[Source: International Journal of Obesity 2010, vol 34, pages 1546-1553]

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