Red wine ingredient fights lung disease
that this powerful component of red wine could not only damp down
the inflammatory process in the progressive lung disease COPD, but
eventually lead to a treatment.
Reaping the growing virtues of resveratrol British scientists find that this powerful component of red wine 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 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.
Full findings for the small study are published in Thorax, 'Inhibition by red wine extract, resveratrol, of cytokine release by alveolar macrophages in COPD', volume 58, pp 942-6.
