Resveratrol Treats COPD

COPD May Be Slowed Even Reversed by Resveratrol an Extract of Red Wine

October 28, 2003

British scientists report this week that the red wine-derived antioxidant resveratrol could not only damp down the inflammatory process in the progressive lung disease COPD, but eventually lead to a treatment.

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is an irreversible and progressive disease where the lungs deteriorate, making it difficult, and eventually impossible, to breathe.

The cells involved in the inflammatory process in COPD include macrophages. These cells produce powerful chemicals, such as interleukins, which stimulate the growth and activity of various other immune system cells. They also produce chemicals to prolong cell life, such as GM-CSF, and they generate free radicals in the process.

Researchers at the Imperial College in London isolated macrophages from the lung fluid samples of 15 smokers and 15 patients with COPD, and ran two experiments. In one, the macrophages were artificially spurred into action by an interleukin or cigarette smoke, resveratrol was then added to the mix. In the other, resveratrol -- a polyphenol antioxidant found in the skins of red fruits -- was added in the absence of artificial stimulation.

The researchers report in this month's issue of Thorax that in the unstimulated samples, resveratrol almost completely eliminated the production of interleukin 8 by 94 per cent in smokers' macrophages and by 88 per cent in COPD macrophages. The production of interleukin 8 was around five times as great in patients with COPD as it was in smokers. Resveratrol also cut the release of GM-CSF by 79 per cent in smokers' samples and by 76 per cent in COPD cells.

In the stimulated samples, the compound more than halved the amount of interleukin produced and almost halved the amount of cell life enhancer.

The authors conclude that resveratrol or related compounds may be more effective than corticosteroids for treating COPD. The issue remains as to how much of the resveratrol would reach the lung tissues, they say, but suggest that analogues would take care of this problem.

Resveratrol has also been linked to the prevention of diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancers and Parkinson's disease but little is yet known about the compound's metabolism in humans. It was recently found to be metabolised in the liver to produce resveratrol glucuronide and sulphate metabolites. A new EU-funded project, Marek Murias, is set to evaluate the antioxidant and antiproliferative effects of these metabolites, hopefully giving researchers more clues about its potential as a nutraceutical.