A chemical in red wine has long been thought to have heart health benefits, and now scientists believe that same chemical may have the ability to fight cancer.
An 8-year-long study conducted by a team at the University of Leicester has found that resveratrol--a compound extracted from the skins of red grapes--can effectively fight cancer even after the body has metabolized it and converted it into other compounds.
The discovery is notable because until now, scientists believed that resveratrol could not be used in clinical trials. It metabolizes too quickly in the body, and once extracted, levels of the chemical fall too quickly.
"Our study was the first to show that resveratrol can be regenerated from sulfate metabolites in cells and that this resveratrol can then have biological activity that could be useful in a wide variety of diseases in humans," said Karen Brown, a professor and translational cancer expert, who led the team.
In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, the Leicester team found that cells can still absorb resveratrol after it has been metabolized into resveratrol sulfates. Researchers administered resveratrol sulfate to mice with cancer and were able to detect free resveratrol in plasma and a variety of tissues. Furthermore, the resveratrol generated from resveratrol sulfate slowed the growth of cancer cells by causing them to essentially eat themselves, halting cancer cell division.
Resveratrol has been a notoriously controversial compound in research circles in recent years. Critics say resveratrol only offers some short-term benefits, if any at all. Founders of Sirtris were forced to repeatedly defend their preclinical work for resveratrol on anti-aging, focused on activating an enzyme called SIRT1. GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) bought Sirtris for $720 million in 2008 but made little headway with resveratrol in the clinic. Other researchers have tried, and failed, to replicate Sirtris's animal studies.
The study authors say the findings support the idea that resveratrol could be developed into a therapeutic molecule, but they caution that any possible benefits from the molecule cannot be achieved by drinking red wine.
- here's the study abstract
- read the press release