To slow the aging process and add years to human life has been a goal of many biological scientists. New tests on resveratrol, along with several similar chemicals, were recently announced in the Science Times section of The New York Times (August 17, 2009) . The article by Nicholas Wade stated that among a group of drugs called sirtuin activators resveratrol seems to show the most promise. Clinical trials of resveratrol have been initiated by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sirtris was co-founded in 2004 by Dr. David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, who first identified the red wine ingredient resveratrol as a possible anti aging drug and Dr. Christoph Westphal, an M.D./Ph.D. described in Wade’s article as a scientific entrepreneur GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company, purchased Sirtris for $720 million in 2008, to facilitate its studies of the sirtuins and enable more rapid development of sirtuin-related drugs to treat the many diseases of aging . Animal studies preceding these new clinical studies have indicated that the sirtuin activator resveratrol, in addition to some small-molecule drugs that act in a similar manner, may be useful in treating such diseases as cancer, adult-onset diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease . More.
As a sirtuin activator resveratrol is a protein produced by a specific gene. In preclinical animal studies, it appears that the function of the sirtuin enzymes is to detect reserves of energy in the body cells, and to spring into action when those reserves are low. Mice and human beings possess the same gene, called sir-2. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals therefore focuses its research on the sirtuins, in the belief that this class of enzymes will lead to the development of orally available, small molecule drugs with the potential to treat diseases associated with aging.
It may be overly simplistic to say that resveratrol slows aging. However, since it is a potent sirtuin activator resveratrol may well be effective against one or more of the diseases that make aging unpleasant and difficult for many people. If you were 80 years old, taking a resveratrol dosage prescribed by your doctor, and totally free of any of the aging diseases, you could be living your life with as much zest and energy as a person of 40. In such a case, you’d probably feel justified in insisting that resveratrol slows aging!
In discussions about human lifespan, scientists have many points of view. As Wade says in his article, All that seems clear about life span is that it is not fixed. And if it is not fixed, there may indeed be ways to extend it. The new tests on resveratrol show that biological scientists are exploring that possibility, right now.
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