QDIS Blog

I recent report from the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging shows that resveratrol found in red wine can keep fat mice healthy.

Wine extract keeps fat mice healthy - Yahoo! News

Resveratrol is chemically known as 5-[(E)-2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-ethenyl]benzene-1,3-diol [501-36-0] and the structure is shown below.

It is found mainly in the skins of red grapes as well as peanuts and berries such as blueberries, and cranberries.

The report states that although the mice are fat, their internal organs looked fine and they did not appear to suffer abnormal effects normally associated with obesity. death was down 31% from a control group. It is way too early though to make any conclusions for humans and the does to see this effect were quite high. A person would have to drink ~100 bottles of red wine per day to get the levels of resveratrol they used in these animal studies.. At least Sirtris Pharmaceuticals will be doing trials and intend to file a drug application through the FDA.

It should be pointed out that resveratol is also sold as a non-regulated supplements but that little safety studies have been performed on it to date.

Other Resources

• Therapeutic potential of resveratrol: the in vivo evidence : Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
• A methoxy derivative of resveratrol analogue selectively induced activation of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway in transformed fibroblasts
• Redistribution of CD95, DR4 and DR5 in rafts accounts for the synergistic toxicity of resveratrol and death receptor ligands in colon carcinoma cells
• resveratrol information from Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University (great source of information)

• resveratrol - Yahoo! Search Results
• resveratrol - Google Search

• Resveratrol (from quackwatch.org; lots of references)
• Resveratrol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Technorati Tags: resveratrol

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a report critical of the Chinese government for not cooperating on the issue of bird flu.

WHO blasts Chinese gov’t on bird flu - Yahoo! News

The Chinese government evidently did not share information and samples of a new strain of the bird flu. It seems this strain has been spreading in poultry and some humans in China for about a year. It wasn’t until it spread to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Laos and Thailand that is was brought to WHO’s attention.

While I understand the possible reasons for the Chinese government not wanting to make this sort of information available, the fact that viruses don’t respect artificial country boundaries makes it the world’s problem. The same thing happen with SARS. I’m not sure how to convince a country to be more forthcoming with this sort of information.

Convincing the Chinese it is in everyone’s best interest to be forthcoming is a challenge. They don’t want to look weak or like they can’t handle the situation but then the rest of the world can’t wait until they situation is so bad that they can no longer keep a lid on the situation. For now, I think the only thing that can be done is to have an active surveillance program in adjacent countries to see when it appears there. It may not give as much advance notice as desired but it appears to be the only viable option it this time.

Technorati Tags: avian flu, bird flu, World Health Organization

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The US government Center for Disease Control (CDC) has added Gardasil to the list of government subsidized vaccines for children.

U.S. gov’t adds Merck’s Gardasil to subsidized health program - iht,business,US Merck Vaccine - Business - International Herald Tribune

I think it is good that this is deemed important enough that the government will provide subsidized vaccines for those who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

Technorati Tags: Center for Disease Control, Gardasil, Merck, vaccine

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