Resveratrol and Cancer: Focus on in vivo Evidence

Resveratrol is a naturally occurring polyphenol that provides a number of anti-aging health benefits including improved metabolism, cardioprotection, and cancer prevention. Much of the work on resveratrol and cancer comes from in vitro studies looking at resveratrol actions on cancer cells and pathways. There are, however, comparatively fewer studies that have investigated resveratrol treatment and cancer outcomes in vivo, perhaps limited by its poor bioavailability when taken orally. Although research in cell culture has shown promising and positive effects of resveratrol, evidence from rodents and humans is inconsistent. This review highlights the in vivo effects of resveratrol treatment on breast, colorectal, liver, pancreatic, and prostate cancers. Resveratrol supplementation in animal models of cancer has shown positive, neutral as well as negative outcomes depending on resveratrol route of administration, dose, tumor model, species, and other factors. Within a specific cancer type, there is variability between studies with respect to strain, age, and sex of animal used, timing and method of resveratrol supplementation, and dose of resveratrol used to study cancer endpoints. Together, the data suggest that many factors need to be considered before resveratrol can be used for human cancer prevention or therapy

Antioxidant effects of resveratrol in cardiovascular, cerebral and metabolic diseases.

Resveratrol-a natural polyphenolic compound-was first discovered in the 1940s. Although initially used for cancer therapy, it has shown beneficial effects against most cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. A large part of these effects are related to its antioxidant properties. Here we review: a) the sources, the metabolism, and the bioavailability of resveratrol; b) the ability of resveratrol to modulate redox signalling and to interact with multiple molecular targets of diverse intracellular pathways; c) its protective effects against oxidative damage in cardio-cerebro-vascular districts and metabolic disorders such as diabetes; and d) the evidence for its efficacy and toxicity in humans. The overall aim of this review is to discuss the frontiers in the field of resveratrol's mechanisms, bioactivity, biology, and health-related use

Cigarette smoke elicits relaxation of renal arteries

Epidemiological studies suggest that cigarette smoking - probably by eliciting hyperperfusion - increases glomerular filtration rate; thus, we hypothesized that cigarette smoke affects the vasomotor tone of renal arteries