The journey of resveratrol from yeast to human

Silvie Timmers^1,², Johan Auwerx³, Patrick Schrauwen^1,²

¹Top Institute Food and Nutrition (TIFN), 6700 Wageningen, The Netherlands
²Department of Human Biology, NUTRIM School for Nutrition, Toxicology and Metabolism, Maastricht University Medical Center, 6200 Maastricht, The Netherlands.
³Laboratory for Integrative and Systems Physiology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Received: March 1, 2012Accepted: March 10, 2012Published: March 12, 2012

Abstract

The natural polyphenolic compound resveratrol was first discovered in the 1940s. In the recent years, this compound received renewed interest as several findings implicated resveratrol as a potent SIRT1 activator capable of mimicking the effects of calorie restriction, and regulating longevity in lower organisms. Given the worldwide increase in age-related metabolic diseases the beneficial effects of resveratrol on metabolism and healthy aging in humans are currently a topic of intense investigation.