Many of us have heard about the health effects associated with moderate consumption of red wine. This article looks at a potential link between red wine and insulin dependency. Interesting news here...
Red
Wine Compound May Curb Diabetes
Compound, Called Resveratrol,
Counters Insulin Resistance in Lab Tests
By Miranda
Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Louise Chang,
MD
Resveratrol, an
antioxidant found in red wine, may counter type 2 diabetes and insulin
resistance, a new study shows.
Insulin is a hormone that controls
blood sugar. When the body becomes less sensitive to insulin, that's called
insulin resistance, a condition that can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Resveratrol curbs insulin resistance
in mice, Chinese scientists report.
They included Cheng Sun and Qiwei
Zhai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.
If the findings apply to people, it
might be possible to create new resveratrol drugs that could be a
"valuable new strategy for treating insulin resistance and type 2
diabetes," write the researchers.
But don't count on a glass of wine
to do the same thing. It would take quite a bit of wine to reach the same level
of resveratrol.
"According to our findings,
people might need to drink about three liters of red wine each day to get
sufficient resveratrol -- about 15 milligrams -- for its biological effects,"
Zhai says in a news release.
The researchers aren't recommending
that anyone rely on wine to help their insulin sensitivity.
Resveratrol
Research
Resveratrol is found in grapes
(especially in red wine), raspberries, peanuts, and other plants that use resveratrol
to defend against threats such as disease.
Sun's team found that
insulin-resistant mice become more sensitive to insulin when given resveratrol.
How does that work? The scientists'
experiments with cells in test tubes show that resveratrol spurs a gene called
SIRT1 to become more active, boosting insulin sensitivity.
The findings appear in October's
edition of the journal Cell Metabolism.
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