How Resveratrol Stops the Damage Caused by a High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet

If you occasionally indulge in a plate of cheesy pasta and a slice of cake, recent headlines want you to believe that you can actually benefit your health — as long as you cap your meal off with a glass of red wine. Now, I certainly don't want to rain on your parade. I think you can absolutely enjoy the occasional high-fat dish, dessert, or glass of wine. I think you can even have them together on special occasions. But don't allow sensational headlines to derail your health by convincing you that this combination is a good everyday idea. Here's the research that's driving these stories — and a plan to use the information they provide.

A few months ago, the journal, Frontiers in Physiology, published a study conducted by a team of researchers from Georgetown University in which they investigated the effects of resveratrol on rhesus monkeys. You'll probably recognize resveratrol as a polyphenol. It's commonly found in blueberries, raspberries, grapes, and, yes, red wine. For this study, the researchers divided the monkeys into three groups. One group ate a normal diet. The second ate a high-fat and high-sugar diet. The third also ate the unhealthy diet, but received a resveratrol supplement.

The researchers wanted to investigate the effects of these diets on the monkeys' leg muscles. That's because previous studies had found that a resveratrol supplement could mimic the effects of aerobic exercise in mice, even when they ate diets high in fat and sugar.

The researchers found that eating a high-fat and high-sugar diet (group 2) particularly affected the monkey's soleus muscle. This is a large muscle the monkeys use for both standing and walking. However, the resveratrol seemed to counterbalance the effects that the group 2 monkeys experienced.

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When the researchers evaluated the monkey's plantaris muscle, another leg muscle, they found that the unhealthy diet didn't seem to hurt it. Even better, the resveratrol seemed to help its function improve, suggesting that the polyphenol could help muscles resist fatigue.

This study is interesting and certainly reminds us that polyphenols like resveratrol can be very beneficial. However, when researchers give supplements to animals, they're typically using much higher concentrations than you'll get in a glass of wine. And the researchers do caution that this study shouldn't be interpreted as a license to eat an unhealthy diet. It's much better to enjoy the benefits of resveratrol as an addition to a healthy diet rather than having to put them to work cleaning up the damage unhealthy foods can do to your body.

So while it's fine to enjoy a glass of red wine, if you truly want to experience all resveratrol can offer you, you need a concentrated form of it. I recommend Advanced Polyphenol Formula. You'll get resveratrol along with several other polyphenols that will support your health far better than a bottle of red wine.

Janet Zand

Source:

Jon-Philippe K. Hyatt, Lisa Nguyen, Allison E. Hall, Ashley M. Huber, Jessica C. Kocan, Julie A. Mattison, Rafael de Cabo, Jeannine R. LaRocque, Robert J. Talmadge. Muscle-Specific Myosin Heavy Chain Shifts in Response to a Long-Term High Fat/High Sugar Diet and Resveratrol Treatment in Nonhuman Primates. Frontiers in Physiology, 2016; 7 DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2016.00077