Resveratrol for Anti-Aging Effects
Despite intense interest, resveratrol has not demonstrated meaningful anti-aging effects in humans.
Overview
Verdict
How It Works
Dosing & Protocol
Typical dose
- Recommended dose
- Studied at 150-1,000 mg/day for up to 12 months; no aging outcome has been demonstrated in humans
- Expected timeframe
- Not established
Protocol
- form
- Trans-resveratrol; bioavailability is under 1% owing to extensive first-pass metabolism
- duration
- Trials ran up to 12 months
- co factor
- Evidence is insufficient. Resveratrol became the archetypal anti-aging compound after reports it activated SIRT1 and extended lifespan in yeast, worms and flies, and improved survival in mice on a high-fat diet. The foundation has weakened considerably: the original SIRT1 activation was challenged as an artefact of the fluorophore-tagged assay substrate, the NIA Interventions Testing Program found no lifespan extension in normally-fed mice, and several key early papers from one laboratory were subject to research misconduct findings. Human trials have measured metabolic markers, cognition and inflammation over weeks to a year, with mixed and mostly modest results, and none has measured an aging endpoint.
- titration
- Not applicable - no dose has affected any human aging outcome
- starting dose
- Not established. Human trials used 150-1,000 mg/day of trans-resveratrol
Evidence
What the studies say
The Effect of Polyphenols on Working and Episodic Memory in Non-pathological and Pathological Aging: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
de Vries K, Medawar E, Korosi A +1 more
overall effect size for WM and EM indicated a significant small positive effect on EM and WM
Safety
Caveats
Resveratrol is the cautionary tale of the longevity supplement field - spectacular preclinical claims, a contested mechanism, retracted and corrected papers from a central laboratory, failure to replicate in rigorous mouse testing, and no human aging outcome after two decades. The interventions with real healthspan evidence remain physical activity including resistance training, not smoking, limiting alcohol, sleep, social connection, controlling blood pressure and diabetes, and preventive care including screening and vaccination. Safety of resveratrol: up to 1,000 mg/day is tolerated short term, but gastrointestinal effects become common above that, and a multiple myeloma trial using 5 g/day was stopped after renal failure cases - treat 1,000 mg/day as the ceiling. It inhibits CYP3A4, CYP2C9 and CYP1A2, raising levels of many medications, and has antiplatelet activity - avoid with anticoagulants and antiplatelet drugs, and stop two weeks before surgery. It has oestrogenic activity, so caution with hormone-sensitive cancer. Two controlled trials found it blunted exercise training adaptations. Avoid in pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Less likely to help if
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