Seniors with Diabetes Benefit from Resveratrol
Diabetes is common and getting commoner. It frequently affects seniors and can lead to complications, including cardiovascular and kidney disease. If there were a safe, natural supplement that could improve things, that would be a great discovery. There is.
Resveratrol is a plant compound similar to flavonoids. It is found in the skin of grapes and mulberries as well as in dark chocolate and peanuts. Resveratrol in supplements usually comes from the herb Japanese knotweed. There have been hints in the research that resveratrol may benefit type 2 diabetes.
This new study set out to see if resveratrol could help seniors with type 2 diabetes.
472 diabetics with an average age of 65-66 years were given either a placebo or 500mg a day of resveratrol for six months in a single-blind study.
The seniors on resveratrol had significantly greater improvement in HbA1c. That is big news because HbA1c is the most important marker of long term blood sugar and diabetes control. They also had significantly greater improvement in fasting blood sugar, insulin resistance and markers of inflammation.
Because diabetes can lead to cardiovascular and kidney complications, it is also important that resveratrol improved kidney function compared to placebo and that it produced significantly greater improvements in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
And the final piece of good news is that resveratrol did all of this safely. There was no significant difference in adverse events in the resveratrol and placebo groups.
This study suggests that resveratrol may be a safe, natural way to help improve diabetes in seniors.
Medicine. August 12 2022;101 (32):30049
