Does resveratrol do it all?

Resveratrol seems to have something for everyone, from protecting your health to activating anabolic mechanisms.

No doubt, many supplements are part of your training stack to help you achieve results. One of them should be resveratrol, which builds muscle, reduces fat, increases testosterone, decreases estrogen, and fights disease.

You can have your arguments about the dangers of sugar, the problems caused by gluten, the merits of vitamin D, or any of the other things that armchair nutritionists routinely debate.

Well, everything is important, but nothing is as fascinating or significant as the burgeoning science of polyphenols.

Resveratrol, a “powerful” polyphenol?

As a reminder, polyphenols are plant metabolites that generally protect plants from ultraviolet radiation or pathogen attack.

Historically, they were thought of only as plant chemicals that gave a particular plant a bright color, or something that made plant-derived foods taste or smell a certain way.

However, it was not until the latter part of the 20th century that we began to recognize them as chemicals that could radically alter human health in multiple ways.

Although the science behind them is still in its infancy, we have begun to isolate and understand the power of individual polyphenols in human health.

Among those that have attracted the most attention (and research) is resveratrol, a polyphenol found in high concentrations in grapes, apples, blueberries, plums, and peanuts.

Athletes may know the compound for its ability to:

• Increase endurance when playing sports.
• Increase testosterone levels and decrease estrogen.
• Stimulate greater mental acuity and focus.
• Help control blood sugar.
• Reduce fat storage or
• Promote the growth and thickening of young muscle cells.
• Even helping with vision.

Resveratrol improves endurance

Resveratrol—what if it could improve your results? According to a 2012 Canadian study, the compound could provide skeletal muscle benefits similar to those of endurance training.

The study, conducted over a 12-week period, found that supplementation with resveratrol also resulted in increased endurance, oxidative metabolism, and improved heart function [2].

Even better, combining endurance training with supplementation resulted in a 21% increase in performance.

Well, if you train for endurance sports or on days when HIIT cardio is part of your routine, the polyphenol should be among your preferred supplements. But is there more?

The same study concludes that if you drink one or two small glasses of wine per day, you would significantly reduce your risk of developing atherosclerotic disease, a precursor to heart disease and strokes.

Resveratrol increases testosterone

Do you think your testosterone needs a boost? Well, as you enter your thirties, it becomes increasingly possible for testosterone to decline.

As this is happening, you should get an analytical test to determine where you stand. And while therapies, testosterone boosters, and certain foods may already be on your mind, do not overlook resveratrol.

According to one study (and several others), blood testosterone concentration can improve by more than 50% after a 28-day period of consuming the polyphenol [3].

Even if you are not very successful, that extra boost you give your body is also part of a balance with estrogen.

According to another study, trans-resveratrol, a plant-derived polyphenolic stilbene, is structurally similar to natural and synthetic estrogens and has been classified as a phytoestrogen.

The direct binding of the polyphenol to the nuclear estrogen receptor (ER) and the modulation of its genomic activity were among the first of its reported pharmacological actions.

Resveratrol modulates nongenomic estrogenic activities.

For scientists, it is clear that the polyphenol (in addition to increasing testosterone) independently interferes with steroidogenesis and estrogen biosynthesis at multiple steps along that pathway.

It also inhibits the hepatic and intestinal metabolism of estrogens and increases circulating levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG).

Resveratrol increases mental acuity

Want a mental edge? One way is by increasing blood flow to the brain.

Recently, researchers in the United Kingdom conducted a study of 22 healthy adults, determining that cerebral blood flow increases after consuming resveratrol [4].

Before that study, researchers in Illinois discovered that the animals receiving supplements with these fantastic polyphenols had better memory function and better overall mental performance.

Although more research is needed to determine the extent of its effect, you now know why, when you take it, you feel a sense of mental well-being while training and did not know how to explain why.

Resveratrol and blood glucose control

The objective of a study was to examine the effectiveness of resveratrol in reducing blood glucose in the presence of standard antidiabetic treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes, in a parallel, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial [4]

• A total of 66 subjects with type 2 diabetes enrolled in this study and were randomly assigned to the intervention group.
• One group used resveratrol at a dose of 1 g / day for 45 days.
• Another control group received placebo tablets.

Body weight, blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, insulin, homeostatic assessments of insulin resistance, triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoproteins, high-density lipoproteins, and markers of liver and kidney damage were measured at baseline and after 45 days of supplementation with resveratrol or placebo.

• Treatment with resveratrol significantly decreased systolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, insulin, and insulin resistance,
• Additionally, HDL increased significantly compared with its baseline levels.

On the other hand, the placebo group had slightly increased fasting glucose and LDL compared with their baseline levels.

Overall, this study showed that this powerful polyphenol exerts strong antidiabetic effects in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, in non-diabetic circumstances, it may help athletes have lower insulin resistance, which will improve the uptake of nutrients delivered to the muscles at key times such as after training.

Resveratrol reduces body fat

Science is constantly seeking to identify new molecules that could be used as functional dietary ingredients in the fight against obesity and its comorbidities.

Among them, polyphenols represent a group of molecules of growing interest and, as we mentioned earlier, one of the most studied polyphenols is resveratrol.

In an important study published in the journal Molecule, it was proposed as an “energy restriction mimetic” because it may exert effects similar to energy restriction [6].

The objective of this review was to analyze the effects of the polyphenol on overweight under different feeding conditions.

Under these experimental conditions, it was concluded that it helps you lose weight through an independent pathway.

To date, studies focusing on the effects of resveratrol under normal feeding conditions or energy restriction in animals and humans are scarcer, and these studies did not report changes in body fat.

After analyzing the results, it was possible to conclude that it is useful for reducing body fat accumulation.

• It may work through some mechanism related to caloric restriction or
• It may work through the muscle/fat balance, and since it helps improve lean mass, this balance may be positively influenced by the polyphenol.

Resveratrol and pain

The anti-inflammatory activity of resveratrol has been widely studied, whereas its beneficial effect in managing neuropathic pain, a refractory chronic syndrome involving pro-inflammation, has been scarcely investigated.

In an interesting study, the effects of different doses and various administration time windows of resveratrol were explored.

A neuropathic rodent model of chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve was used [7]

• Pretreatment with the supplement (5, 10, 20, and 40 mg / kg) for 7 consecutive days before CCI did not alleviate neuropathic pain.
• It also clearly alleviated pain when administered after CCI, and this pain-relieving effect was more pronounced when administered immediately after the peak of pain symptoms on day 7 after CCI, as demonstrated by the alleviation of thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia.

However, the highly beneficial effect of resveratrol was dose-dependent. But how does it do this?

• A mechanistic study showed that it represses the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IL-6, and
• It simultaneously promotes the expression of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10.

It was also demonstrated that neuropathic pain was inversely correlated with pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6.

However, this did not occur with the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 in all the experimental rodents according to Spearman’s correlation coefficient.

It was therefore concluded that resveratrol shows a significant pain-relieving effect on neuropathic pain.

Furthermore, it paves the way for a novel treatment for chronic pain, including joint pain (arthritis and other bone conditions).

Resveratrol and eye protection

Vision is possibly the most important of the five senses for everyone, and even more so for an athlete. Even the slightest loss of vision is noticed immediately.

Vision loss is a normal part of aging.

Fortunately, a study conducted by researchers from Missouri found that resveratrol can counteract this relatively common occurrence.

How? Well, researchers discovered that the polyphenol can regulate angiogenesis, thereby preventing the abnormal growth of blood vessels that damage vision.

Other foods you should also consider adding to your diet for eye health include omega-3-rich fatty fish, as well as foods rich in beta-carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E.

Conclusions

Although these are specific and highly interesting objectives, resveratrol has a long list of other properties [1].

• Many studies have shown that the polyphenol, in addition to treating the primary diseases that afflict humans,
• It is also very promising in the treatment of other diseases such as neurodegenerative, kidney, and liver diseases, cataracts, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, in addition to having antipathogenic properties.

As human beings, this should make us curious, and if we are amateur or professional bodybuilders, we should consider it for its multiple benefits for body composition and/or performance.

Nevertheless, it is clear that through several pathways, and as an antioxidant by combating oxidative damage, it can not only promote well-being but also enhance the results of a training program, both during the cutting phase, when you want to lose fat, and during the bulking phase, when you want to gain muscle (lean muscle is preferable).

Finally, it is even fantastic for cleaning receptors (increasing autophagy—self-cleaning, by increasing or activating AMPK).

This may help improve muscle cells’ ability to absorb more nutrients.

In the following video, we present how to use it with other supplements such as R-ALA and chromium polynicotinate.