Chris Kresser: My take is that from what I’ve seen, supplemental resveratrol falls into the category of many supplemental antioxidants, which is caution, use with caution. As I’ve written and spoken about, antioxidants actually should really be termed pro-oxidants because that’s the way that they induce an antioxidant effect in the body. They have a pro-oxidant effect and they stimulate a hormetic adaptive response in the body. And if you get small amounts of those pro-oxidants in foods or wine, in the case of resveratrol, grapes, etc., then that can have a beneficial effect. But when you take a supplemental amount, larger supplemental amounts of many of these antioxidants, the research starts to become a lot less convincing and even in some cases concerning. So for short-term use, I think a supplement like this could be fine, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend someone taking resveratrol or something with resveratrol in significant doses in it for a longer-term period.
That’s a little less clear. There are some studies of curcumin use out to two years, I think, that have shown no adverse effects. But I was talking with Chris Masterjohn about this at Paleo f(x), and one of the biggest limitations of scientific research right now is that we don’t have long-term studies. He was telling me about some work that was done on omega-3 or on PUFAs, omega-3 and omega-6 fats back in the 70s, the study that lasted for, I think it was 10 years, it was eight years or 10 years, and how in the first two years the results were pointing in one direction and then by the end of the study they were pointing, eight years or 10 years, whatever it was, they were pointing in the opposite direction. So this is kind of part of the hazard here. It’s like, okay, well, we know maybe that curcumin in a couple of these studies is safe for two years, but does that mean it’s safe for 10 years? It’s a little more difficult to make that determination. So we, in general, again, I think that the precautionary principle applies, and to the extent that we can, we want to provide the greatest benefit with the least harm. And to me that just means doing as much as we can with diet and lifestyle modification and then using supplements in a therapeutic way, which means for a specific purpose, for a specific period of time, and then minimizing the use of long-term supplements or medications.
Now, having said that, that’s not always possible, and if you have a patient with an autoimmune inflammatory disease, there’s a real risk in uncontrolled inflammation. I mean, that can raise the risk of heart disease and other problems that could reduce lifespan. And so you have to consider then, is taking curcumin or boswellia or even something like CoQ10 if the patient is worried or concerned about their heart function, or if they’re taking a statin, or red yeast rice extract, could the benefits that those supplements provide in terms of reducing inflammation or improving mitochondrial function outweigh the potential downsides of taking them for a longer period of time? And we just don’t know. So we have to kind of do the best we can, and I aim for getting the patient back to wellness in terms of their subjective symptoms and objective lab markers, and then once they’re there, trying to maintain that with diet and lifestyle as much as possible.