Resveratrol is a compound produced in the skin of grapes and is used to defend against bacteria and insects, it is also present in red wine. In a study that was published Thursday in the journal Circulation, it was stated that mice that were fed large quantities of resveratrol experienced a beneficial drop in blood pressure.
Resveratrol may be used to develop a new class of high blood pressure drugs for humans someday, and this is what the researchers who explored the mechanics of how it works believes. However, because they did not experiment on humans yet, it has not been proven that these findings can be translated to humans. This is not a go signal for people to drink massive amounts of red wine.
Around 40 percent of adults around the world who are 25 and older have high blood pressure, while in the United States, 1 in 3 adults have high blood pressure, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High blood pressure is considered a silent killer, as it has been linked to strokes and heart attacks.
The research team began their experiments by inducing high blood pressure in mice. They were then fed a diet that is high in resveratrol for 15 days. They then compared it with mice that were on a normal diet, in turn, they found that the blood pressure of the mice that consumed high quantities of resveratrol had dropped a significant amount.
Resveratrol caused the blood vessels to relax leading to a decrease in blood pressure, due to the fact that the protein called PKG1a in the vessel walls, had been oxidized.
There are no blood pressure-lowering medications that target this physiological pathway. Researchers then added that resveratrol is actually an oxidant, an atom that takes one or more electrons from another party in a chemical reaction. Oxidants lead to cell damage, while antioxidants can prevent or delay harm done to cells because they supply electrons.
The study also states that resveratrol's blood pressure-lowering abilities might be accentuated to heart disease patients. The compound needs to be activated to oxidize the protein and those activating compounds are found at higher concentrations in heart patients.
Bob Patton, an alcohol researcher and a lecturer at the University of Surrey, pointed out that if you wanted to match the effective dosage that is found in the study, you would need to drink around 1,000 bottles of wine every day, which is impossible.
Such a high dose was needed because resveratrol must be broken down in order to reach the target in the blood vessel wall, and it does not dissolve well. Future drugs may need synthetic compounds that mimic its beneficial effects or altered, easy-to-dissolve resveratrol.
