News & Research

    Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York

Pilot study of resveratrol in older adults with impaired glucose tolerance

General Research Subject: Insulin Resistance Pre Diabetes

Focus: Clinical Therapeutics/New Technology\Treatment of Insulin Resistance, Complications\ Macrovascular-Atherosclerotic CVD and Human Diabetes

Type of Grant: Clinical Translational Research

Project Start Date: January 1, 2011

Project End Date: December 31, 2013

Research Description

Resveratrol is a substance found in many plants, including grapes and red wine, which is widely used as a nutritional supplement.  Studies in cells and lower animals show that resveratrol has many potential benefits, including prolonging lifespan, preventing cancer and heart disease and normalization of glucose metabolism.  Although use of this agent shows great promise in the treatment and/or prevention of diabetes, there have been no studies reported to date in humans.   As an initial step, this proposal is for a 6 week pilot study of resveratrol treatment in older adults (n=40) with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) in order to explore its effects on post-meal blood glucose metabolism.  This study will focus on older adults because IGT and diabetes increase dramatically with age, affecting almost 40% of adults over age 60, and are associated with a significant increased risk of heart disease. 

Thus, this group would stand to benefit the most if resveratrol is found to be effective.  Preliminary studies will also be conducted to explore how resveratrol works by studying cellular function (in muscle samples obtained from study participants) and by testing resveratrol's effect on blood vessel function. Demonstrating that resveratrol can improve glucose metabolism in humans would be of tremendous therapeutic importance in light of the wide availability, low cost and apparent safety of this orally active agent.  Results of this pilot study will provide critical information that is needed to plan and conduct more definitive studies of resveratrol in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Research Profile

What area of diabetes research does your project cover?  What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?

The purpose of this study is to test whether resveratrol, a commonly used nutritional supplement, can improve blood sugar levels in people with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT, also called 'pre-diabetes').  Resveratrol is a substance found in many plants, including grapes and red wine, which is widely used as a nutritional supplement.  Studies in cells and lower animals show that resveratrol has many potential benefits, including prolonging lifespan, preventing cancer and heart disease and normalization of glucose metabolism.  Although use of this agent shows great promise in the treatment and/or prevention of diabetes, there have been few studies reported to date in humans.   Our preliminary studies in a small group of older adults showed promise and encouraged us to propose the current study.

This study will focus on older adults because IGT and diabetes increase dramatically with age, affecting almost 40% of adults over age 60, and are associated with a significant increased risk of heart disease.  Thus, this group would stand to benefit the most if resveratrol is found to be effective.  Preliminary studies will also be conducted to explore how resveratrol works by studying cellular function (in muscle samples obtained from study participants) and by testing resveratrol's effect on blood vessel function. Demonstrating that resveratrol can improve glucose metabolism in humans would be of tremendous therapeutic importance in light of the wide availability, low cost and apparent safety of this orally active agent. 

If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?

Despite the fact that several new types of diabetes medicines have been become available over the past decade, there is still a strong need for other treatment options, especially ones that are safe and inexpensive. Results of this pilot study will provide critical information that is needed to plan and conduct more definitive studies of resveratrol in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. 

Our study will also attempt to answer the question of how resveratrol works, by studying the blood levels of important hormones and muscle cells obtained from participants who are taking the drug.  Better understanding of how resveratrol (and other 'sirtuin activators') works could open the way for new discovery of other drugs or treatments that could help people in the future. 

Finally, resveratrol may have important beneficial effects on function of the heart and blood vessels, which could be especially important for people with, or at risk for, diabetes. We will test this by measuring blood vessel function during treatment with resveratrol. 

Why is it important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research?  What role will this award play in your research efforts?

Treatment and prevention of diabetes has been the focus of my professional life, as a researcher, clinician and teacher.  But my first interest in diabetes came from the fact that my mother developed type 1 diabetes when she was a young adult, and so I literally grew up with diabetes in the house.  I appreciated my mother's struggle to maintain glucose control and to deal with complications like hypoglycemia and heart disease. 

This award will allow me to take the next step in exploration of a potential new treatment for diabetes.  If the results of this study are encouraging, then my research group will pursue larger and more comprehensive studies that could ultimately lead to availability of thoroughly tested, safe and approved therapy.  We would also pursue further research into the mechanisms involved in resveratrol action and its effects on cardiovascular health.

In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?

I see three distinct, but related pathways.  First, treatment of diabetes (i.e., to achieve blood sugar control) needs to become more individualized and specific to each individual's metabolic profile.  Pharmacogenomics (using genetics to predict who will respond to any given drug) will be part of this, but we also need to have better understanding of the basic molecular defects that lead to impaired glucose regulation in people with type 2 diabetes.  Second, we need to develop better treatments designed to prevent (or treat, once established) diabetic complications - eye, kidney, nerve and heart damage. 

Although control of blood glucose clearly reduces the risk of these complications, achievement of completely normal blood glucose levels may never become a reality for many individuals with diabetes and so, alternate approaches to address vascular complication risk are needed.  Finally, there is a great need for more behavioral science and public health research directed at implementation of the healthy lifestyle strategies that we know are effective to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes.