Earlier this week, we explored whether taking a daily Resveratrol along with supplements Nicotinamide Riboside “NR” (FAQs) (Reviews) or NMN (FAQs) affords any health or longevity benefits. A former labmate of Dr David Sinclair says the answer is likely “no”. Now comes Dr Charles Brenner (NR and NAD expert) who agrees that “Resveratrol is hype”. He made the case on a recent podcast:

First, here’s a Tweet from Dr Brenner in response to Dr Sinclair’s former labmate:

Key Quotes from Dr Brenner’s appearance on the Habits & Hustle Podcast (@ 20:20 mark embedded below):

Host:

“then how about…Resveratrol?

Dr. BRENNER:

“So, Resveratrol is a perfectly nice antioxidant.

It’s found in grapes.

It’s also found in peanuts.

And, it has a lot of proteins in human cells that it associates with — there’s a lot of proposed mechanisms for beneficial effects of it.

There’s a lot of things that it does in cell culture.

There’s a few things it does in mice.

I’m pretty doubtful of anything demonstrated that it does in people.

One of the proposed mechanisms of Resveratrol is that it binds to a human protein called SIRT1.

It doesn’t”

Host:

“So where did this all come from?

Because that was — do you remember, that was like the biggest craze?”

Dr. BRENNER:

“It came from a series of peer-reviewed studies whose conclusions are not reproducible.

So, initially it was found in supposedly a yeast assay in which it made yeast to live longer.

And I’ve used that assay before.

And that assay depends upon a yeast gene called Sir2.

And Sir2 is a perfectly nice yeast gene.

The problem is that increasing the lifespan of a yeast is not the same as increasing the lifespan of a worm, fly, mouse or human.

And all of the subsequent stuff that was said about the Sir2 related genes in worms turned out not to be true — and in flies turned out not to be true.

It couldn’t be demonstrated in mice.

Resveratrol was said to bind to the the yeast Sir2 protein and then to the human SIRT1 protein that doesn’t do those things.

Now, there’s a paper a few years ago that said “here’s the way it really does bind to human SIRT1”.

But if you look at the structure and how it supposedly binds to SIRT1 — if that’s true, then it couldn’t have been discovered the way it was discovered by binding to yeast Sir2 because they don’t have the same amino acid sequences like the protein structure.

So the whole thing is a mess.

It’s a mess.

And the people that were convinced to take Resveratrol were really sold a bill of goods.

And anybody that is still defending it is not being evidence-based”

RELATED:

  • Should You Take Resveratrol with Nicotinamide Riboside (NR)? Dr Sinclair’s Former Labmate Says Resveratrol Unlikely Impacts Health & Longevity (Link)
  • FAQs on NMN (Link)
  • FAQs on NR (Link)(Reviews)