More proof that drug companies should not mess with nature. They are continuously trying to copy nutrients and chemicals found in nature; failing miserably and then blaming the natural compound instead of themselves. Then they tout how dangerous the natural component is simply because their “form” of it became toxic and they could not replicate the safety of the ingredient as found in nature. When drug companies try to synthesize a natural compound to sell for a quick profit, no one wins.

This was the case recently with resveratrol. Resveratrol is a chemical compound found naturally in certain plants. These plants produce it as an antibiotic to fight bacteria and fungi. Researchers found that in its natural form, resveratrol can slow the effects of aging. When a drug company tried to synthesize this compound they failed to create a safe product.

Here is what Professor Chaney has to say about it:

Tips From The Professor: The “Resveratrol” Drug Is Not Resveratrol

Some of you have been asking about the May 4th 2010 announcement by GlaxoSmithKline that they were suspending a clinical trial of their resveratrol drug because of safety concerns.

Some of the articles went so far to say that people should be cautious about taking resveratrol supplements until these safety issues had been resolved.

Let me make this perfectly clear! The “resveratrol” drug referred to in these articles is not resveratrol itself!

But let’s start at the beginning.

The story started when scientists at Harvard screened over 500,000 chemicals to find which would be most effective at turning on anti-aging genes.

They were looking for a drug that they could patent and sell to a drug company for big bucks – not a naturally occurring botanical nutrient.

But what they found was that resveratrol, a nutrient that is found naturally in red wine, was the most effective compound out of those 500,000 that they screened at turning on the anti-aging genes.

That was great news for those of you who are using resveratrol supplements, but it was bad news for them because they couldn’t patent it and, therefore, couldn’t sell it to a drug company.

But all was not lost. There is a time-tested process for dealing with this dilemma.

You just make a chemically modified derivative of the natural compound and, if it works, you patent the chemical derivative and sell it to a drug company.

So that’s what the scientists at Harvard did. They made a chemical derivative of resveratrol called SRT501, showed that it also turned on the anti-aging genes, patented it and sold it to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals for $500 million. Sirtris, in turn, sold it to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

As I said, this is a frequently used process. Many successful drugs have been obtained this way, but the process is also fraught with perils.

The problem is that the chemically modified derivative is often not metabolized in the same way as the original and frequently can be toxic in unexpected ways.

In fact, the failure rate for this process is quite high. Most of the chemical derivatives fail during clinical trials for one reason or another. It is only on a very rare occasion that these chemically modified derivatives make it through clinical trials and become a successful drug.

Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that SRT501 displayed unexpected toxicity that caused GlaxoSmithKline to halt clinical trials of the drug.

But, SRT501 is not resveratrol and the toxicities of this drug have nothing to do with resveratrol.

Resveratrol is a completely natural nutrient found in grapes, red wine and other foods. SRT501 is a man-made chemical derivative of resveratrol.

Sometimes it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!

To Your Health!

Dr. Stephen G Chaney

For More Information on Aging Click on These Links:

Anti-Aging Supplement with Antioxidant Nutrition – Is There A Fountain Of Youth?

Vivix Research Study Shows How It Activates Nrf2 Anti-Aging Gene

Shaklee Vivix Resveratrol Dietary Supplement

How We Age

Shaklee Vivix And Nrf2, Vivix Info With Dr. Stephen Chaney, Ph.D.

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