Welcome   >  Antioxidants  >  Longevity : a giant...
13-06-2016

Longevity : a giant step forward

The greatest frustration faced by anti-ageing scientists is that for centuries they have known how to add years, or even decades, to life expectancy … but no-one, or almost no-one, is prepared to follow their prescribed method.
This consists of limiting food intake, to the point of being permanently hungry. Scientists call this “calorie restriction” and it can indeed add many healthy years of life, but there’s no doubt that few people are prepared to feel hungry their whole lives in order to live longer.
Recently however, a brilliant solution has been found to this problem, with a new combination of phytonutrients that mimic the effects of calorie restriction on the body, without having to make any changes to your diet. This is an extraordinary breakthrough but in order to benefit from it, it’s important to understand why calorie restriction is effective at slowing down ageing:

Eating less can extend lifespan by 50%

It was Luigi Cornaro, an Italian aristocrat from the Renaissance, who first explained this amazing discovery in his autobiography The Art of Living a Long Time. Until the age of 37, he ate without moderation and his health steadily deteriorated. He then decided to restrict his daily calorie intake and immediately began to feel better. He carried on eating frugally, his health continued to improve and he reached his centenary, finally dying at the age of 103.
In 1935 an American gerontologist (a specialist in ageing), Clive McCay, confirmed that by restricting the diet of rats, he could increase their longevity by 40% and significantly reduce the appearance of age-related diseases. In 1986, Richard Weindruch, a professor and ageing specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provided similar evidence, this time in mice.

Studies have since been conducted on various animals, in particular, spiders and fish. Dr Pierette Gaudreau, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Montreal, observed a 50 % longer lifespan in calorie-restricted rats compared with those who ate what they wanted. In addition, the former were healthier and developed age-related diseases at a much later stage.

Lower incidence of cancer and other diseases in calorie-restricted primates

In 2009, Richard Weindruch published the findings of a new experiment conducted on primates. It showed that 37% of macaques who ate as much as they wanted succumbed to an age-related disease, while the figure was just 13% in those whose calorie intake was restricted.
He also demonstrated that the primates not only lost weight (fairly obviously) but that they were in better physical shape and suffered half as much from age-related cancers and cardiovascular disease. Similarly, only 13% of the calorie-restricted primates developed diabetes, while 29% of the unrestricted group presented with early signs of the disease.

No-one wants to feel hungry!

However, all these scientists faced the same problem: they were all convinced that these same life-extending effects could be replicated in humans. Indeed, there are a great many centenarians among the Japanese population of the island of Okinawa, well-known for having a low calorie diet (consisting mainly of vegetables and seafood).
But they equally had to accept that such a punishing regime could not be imposed on humans.
Fortunately, the problem has now been resolved: scientists have discovered nutrients with exactly the same effect on the body as calorie restriction - and thus the same benefits: by ingesting these nutrients, we could extend a healthy lifespan by years.
It seems incredible but it’s actually quite simple:

Natural nutrients which produce the same effects

The reason calorie restriction has such positive effects on health and longevity is because certain genes are activated while others are de-activated when you are hungry.
These changes in gene activation cause various beneficial reactions in the body, which is why you age more slowly and why age-related diseases are delayed or may never develop at all. There are five of these reactions:
    1) a reduction in inflammation (inflammation is known to promote arthritis, diabetes, cancer and cardiac disease, amongst others);
    2) an improvement in fat and carbohydrate metabolism: nutrients are ‘burned’ more effectively, producing fewer waste products and ‘bad’ fats;
    3) a reduction in blood glycaemia (blood sugar levels) which is excellent in terms of diabetes and cancer risk;
    4) an improvement in circulation through support of ‘endothelial function’ (the endothelium is the cell layer which line the interior of blood vessels);
    5) a halt in the development and proliferation of cancer cells.
And no longer do you need to drastically cut your food intake to obtain these results. Phytonutrients (plant-extracted nutrients) exist with exactly the same effects.
They mimic the effects of calorie restriction and act synergistically to combat ageing. In particular, they have a positive effect on the longevity genes that influence the ageing process.

Effective but unusual nutrients

These are very specific nutrients that are rarely present in the diet, even a balanced diet including five fruits and vegetables a day.
This is why nutrition researchers have created a dietary supplement that contains all these nutrients: it is called Resveratrol Synergy.
As its name suggests, this product contains in particular a genuinely effective and natural anti-ageing weapon: resveratrol.
Animal research has shown that resveratrol mimics a number of the beneficial changes in gene expression conferred by calorie restriction. Other studies have highlighted resveratrol’s many properties, including its ability to promote insulin sensitivity, stimulate mitochondrial function (the cells’ powerhouses), reduce expression of inflammatory factors and protect against the harmful effects of a high-fat diet.
Resveratrol alone offers almost all the anti-ageing effects obtained from radically limiting food consumption.

Enhancing resveratrol’s effects with other nutrients

But the researchers have gone further. They have combined a compound from the same family - pterostilbene - with resveratrol, demonstrating that these two substances act synergistically on longevity genes, enhancing their anti-ageing benefits. Pterostilbene’s bioavailability is, however, much higher than that of resveratrol. It has anti-inflammatory, anti-neoplastic and antioxidant properties.
It exerts its effects through fundamental biological interactions to control gene expression and modulate enzymatic action. It has a beneficial, regulatory effect on the genes involved in the development of cancer, atherosclerosis, diabetes and inflammation.
Even though the combination of these two products already offers outstanding anti-ageing effects, the researchers decided to go a step further by adding quercetin, a product which also mimics certain of the effects of calorie restriction. A powerful antioxidant, it also has significant anti-inflammatory benefits, through the inhibition of the NF-kappaB pathway, a protein that plays a fundamental role in controlling expression of the genes that encode pro-inflammatory cytokines. Quercetin has also been shown to protect against cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and cancer. Vitamin C boosts its effects and bioavailability.
And to make Resveratrol Synergy a truly revolutionary anti-ageing product, the researchers added the potent effects of oligoproanthocyanadins (OPCs), found in pine bark. OPCs have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They have a number of beneficial effects, particularly on endothelial function, glycaemia and inflammation.
Finally, to complete the efficacy of this all-powerful formulation, and to take account of the very latest research, fisetin extracted from Buxus sinica has been added. This rare and precious substance sends a ‘switch-on’ signal to transporter cells of the anti-ageing gene ensuring protection of DNA and neurons, particularly during periods of oxidative stress. Fisetin also has a stabilising effect on resveratrol preventing it from being destroyed.

Long-lasting effect due to polydatin

The only drawback with Resveratrol Synergy is that its action, while very intense, is also very fast and not long-lasting. Researchers have however resolved this problem by adding polydatin. Polydatin is a glucoside of resveratrol - in other words, it is a molecule of resveratrol bound to one of sugar. When polydatin enters the bloodstream, the resveratrol molecule separates from the sugar molecule. The glucoside of resveratrol is thus absorbed at a different rate to that of classic resveratrol, improving resveratrol’s bioavailability, half-life and potency.
The development of a product such as Resveratrol Synergy represents a massive leap forward in extending longevity through natural nutrition.
Order the nutrient mentioned in this article
Resveratrol Synergy

Improves biomarkers of aging and promotes expression of longevity genes

us.supersmart.com
Further reading
04-09-2019
This mitochondria-targeting antioxidant could take 20 years...
A study published in Hypertension , the journal of the American Heart Association, has provided new evidence of this dietary supplement’s effectiveness for reducing the...
Read more
21-08-2019
Resveratrol: astonishing new study confirms its ‘enormous...
Researchers at Exeter University have succeeded in rejuvenating senescent cells in the laboratory 1 using a molecule already known for its effects on longevity: resveratrol....
Read more
13-02-2017
Zinc: take daily supplements to reduce DNA...
If you’re wondering about the benefits of zinc or how effective it is, a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2016...
Read more
Follow us
Please choose your language
enfres

Free

Thank you for visiting our site. Before you go

REGISTER WITH
Club SuperSmart
And take advantage
of exclusive benefits:
  • Free: our weekly science-based newsletter "Nutranews"
  • Special offers for club members only
> Continue