A GLASS OF RED WINE IS THE EQUIVALENT TO AN HOUR AT THE GYM, SAYS NEW STUDY By: Ryan Milani, Justin Shock, Mattie Crisler, Blake Barbour, and Jacob Dickman

How the Media Portrays the Article Article by Huffington post claims that health benefits found in Resveratrol are similar to the effects of exercise training Resveratrol is a polyphenol, that can be found as an antioxidant in red wine Resveratrol has been shown to have several beneficial effects on cardiac and skeletal muscle function, similar to the effects of endurance exercise training ●They go on to say that Resveratrol has been shown to improve overall physical performance, heart function, and muscle strength in the same ways that exercise during a gym workout does ●Emphasizes the fact that Resveratrol can provide beneficial results to individuals who want to exercise, but are physically unable to do so ●Also makes a point to state that other studies have shown that individuals who consume one glass of red wine daily are less likely to develop dementia, cancer, heart problems, and can maintain healthy blood sugar levels

The Research Article ● What are they claiming? ○ They are claiming that resveratrol has beneficial effects that are similar to those of endurance exercise training ● What type of study was this? ○ Experimental Design ● What did they seek to discover? ○ They wanted to clarify whether RESV (resveratrol) was beneficial for exercise performance in generally healthy rats, as well as to determine whether RESV had additional effects during exercise training

Methods of the Study ●What did they do? ○ Had 50 eight week old male Winstar rats (obtained from Charles River Laboratories) ■ Housed the rats 2 per cage ○ Maintained the rats under a 12 hour light-dark cycle ○ From age weeks, the rats had free access to water, were fed either the standard chow diet, or the standard chow diet that contained 4g of RESV/kg diet ○ Used electrical stimulation (foot shock) for endurance training and the determination of the rats’ exercise performance ○ o ET began at 10 weeks of age (through 22 weeks of age) ■ ET was 5 days a week and was determined by the rat’s time to exhaustion ○ Sedentary control rats were acclimated to the treadmill as well as being handled 5 days a week, but didn’t receive daily ET ○ Completed isometric muscle measurements ○ Completed in vivo assessment of cardiac and vascular parameters at 21 weeks ○ Completed Ex vivo assessment of cardiac function and oxidative metabolism after the 12 weeks of diets and ET

Methods of the Study (continued) ○ Completed glucose and insulin tolerance tests ■ For the GTT, rats were injected with a 50% glucose solution following a 5 hour fast ■ For the ITT, human recombinant insulin (aka Novolin) was used to prepare an insulin-saline solution that was injected after a 2 hour fast ●blood glucose was measured from the tail at baseline following the insulin injection at 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes ○ Measurements of food intake and whole body energy metabolism were performed using a comprehensive lab animal monitoring system. ○ Determined protein concentrations using a Bradford protein assay ○ Determination of plasma free fatty acids and triacylglycerol ○ Affymetrix microarray analysis of heart tissues ■ basically, RNA quality obtained from the different control groups was analyzed and determined using a bioanalyzer

Results Resveratrol, when introduced as a supplement during exercise training, increased the rats’ endurance capacity, and improved cardiac function, insulin sensitivity, and glucose disposal. Sedentary rats who had Resveratrol introduced into their diet showed a 25% increase in their endurance capacity at week 12 compared to their initial exercise performance at the beginning of the experiment. However, they did not receive any of the other benefits of Resveratrol and still had a much lower endurance capacity compared to the rats in the exercise training group.

Conclusion Resveratrol optimizes fatty acid metabolism, which may increase skeletal muscle contraction force and improves cardiac function. Resveratrol supplementation during exercise improves exercise performance more than exercise alone. Clinical activity implementation can benefit from research findings. Type of Study: Experimental, animal study

Can we Believe the Claims? The article’s claims are very misleading. The article makes it appear like simply drinking red wine will lead to significant weight loss. When in reality the study showed that resveratrol showed its full effects when it was used in unison with exercise. Also the study was an animal study which used rats. This does not indicate that the results will carry over with humans. In short, we cannot believe the article’s claims, because there have not been human trials and exercise is needed to have the full effect of resveratrol.

References red-wine-is-the-equivalent-to-an-hour-at-the-gym-says- new-study_n_ html red-wine-is-the-equivalent-to-an-hour-at-the-gym-says- new-study_n_ html /full /full