Resveratrol: a polyphenol with multiple health benefits
Keywords:
Resveratrol, Calorie restriction, antioxidants, neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, SirtuinsAbstract
In today’s stressful world, there is an urgent need for simple drugs to combat lifestyle diseases like heart diseases and diabetes, which are assuming epidemic proportions. Resveratrol is one such molecule. It is the molecule behind a phenomenon known as the “French paradox”, i.e. the observation of low incidence of heart disease in France in spite of a diet rich in fats. It is a major component of red wine, also part of the French diet. Resveratrol is a naturally occurring polyphenolic phytoalexin, derived from the skin of plants, which has gained interest exponentially in recent years. This molecule is found to have a number of health benefits, including prevention of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. It is known to have anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-platelet aggregation and many other health beneficial properties. It has found tremendous clinical application. Among its wide range of biological activities, the most striking activity is of cancer and tumor initiation prevention. This molecule has been shown to have a positive effect on metabolism and improvement in overall health of an individual and can probably be used as an anti ageing drug alone or in combination with some other medication. These remarkable properties have elicited a huge interest of researchers in this molecule. It has been reported to interfere with some major cellular signaling pathways which are involved in cell survival or cell death. Careful insights into these cellular pathways and their interaction with resveratrol could pave the way for future drug designing for treatment of diseases. Here we have tried to review the maximum possible biological properties of resveratrol cited so far in the literature.
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