Red wine shows new promise in search to enhance longevity

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human life span, researchers say in a new report.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient in some red wines. Some scientists take resveratrol in capsule form but others think it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

The report is part of a new wave of interest in drugs that may enhance longevity. On Monday, Sirtris, a startup founded in 2004 to develop drugs with the same effects as resveratrol, completed its sale to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

Sirtris is seeking to develop drugs that activate protein agents known in people as sirtuins. "The upside is so huge that, if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine," Dr. David Sinclair, of the Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of the company, said Tuesday.

Mainstream scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs, but the door has been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body's resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

The reflex can be prompted by a faminelike diet, known as caloric restriction, which extends the life of laboratory rodents by up to 30 percent, but is far too hard for most people to keep to and has not been proven to work in humans.

Research started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Leonard Guarente, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed recently that the famine-induced switch to tissue preservation may be triggered by activating the body's sirtuins. Sinclair, a former student of his, found in 2003 that sirtuins could be activated by a number of natural compounds, including resveratrol.

Sinclair's finding led in several directions. He and others have tested resveratrol's effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts present in red wine.

One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

Sirtris, meanwhile, has been testing resveratrol and other drugs that activate sirtuin. These drugs are small molecules, more stable than resveratrol, and can be given in smaller doses.

Separately, a research team led by Tomas Prolla and Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin, reports in the journal PLoS One today that resveratrol may be effective in mice and people in much lower doses than previously thought necessary.

In earlier studies, like Auwerx's of mice running on treadmills, the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account and mice's higher metabolic rate, four 5-ounce glasses of wine "starts getting close" to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Weindruch said.

Resveratrol can also be obtained in the form of capsules marketed by several companies.