There has been evidence for years that drinking red wine is good for the heart.
Now scientists claim that a chemical in the skin of red grapes will help you live longer.
Harvard Medical School professor Dr David Sinclair says the chemical contains a potent anti-ageing compound, called resveratrol.
In 2004, he co-founded a firm to develop a synthetic form of the substance, which is stable enough to be put in a pill bottle. And, last week, it was revealed that the UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has bought his company for £361million.
The sale has stunned some scientists who say there is little data on the drug’s effectiveness and safety in humans. But Dr Sinclair remains convinced he has discovered an elixir of life.
He said: ‘The upside is so huge that, if we are right, the company that dominates (this market) could change medicine.’
He said mice exposed to resveratrol in experimental conditions ‘live longer, are almost immune to the effects of obesity and don’t get diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s as frequently’.
Recent research has shown that if laboratory rodents are put on a starvation diet, it extends their life by up to 30 per cent.
The diet is believed to work by activating a ‘survival’ gene known as sirtuin – and Dr Sinclair says the same gene is triggered by resveratrol.
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May 12th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Medicines that can help people live healthy lives to 100 and beyond may be available in as little as two years, an expert said today.
The drugs have come out of research into age-related ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s.
To satisfy the requirements of drug regulators and the market they are billed as remedies for specific illnesses. But in actual fact they tackle multiple causes of unhealthy ageing, according to Professor Nir Barzilai, one of the world’s leading age scientists.
Prof Barzilai’s own work at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York has identified genetic variants that mark out people who live to a “ripe old age”.
The new drugs build on these discoveries, which involve biological pathways affecting metabolism, cell-death, inflammation and cholesterol.
‘Pharmaceutical companies are developing these drugs now,’ said Prof Barzilai, who joined other experts at the Royal Society in London today for a discussion meeting on the science of ageing.
‘They will probably be available for testing from 2012.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1277783/Drugs-help-live-100-available-2012.html