News Release

Lemurs lose weight with 'life-extending' supplement

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMC (BioMed Central)

The anti-obesity properties of resveratrol have been demonstrated for the first time in a primate. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Physiology studied the compound, generated naturally by plants to ward off pathogens, which has received much interest as a dietary supplement for its supposed life-extending effects.

Fabienne Aujard, from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France, worked with a team of researchers to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with resveratrol on the weight, metabolism and energy intake of six mouse lemurs. She said, "The physiological benefits of resveratrol are currently under intensive investigation, with recent work suggesting that it could be a good candidate for the development of obesity therapies. We've found that lemurs eating a diet supplemented with the compound decreased their energy intake by 13% and increased their resting metabolic rate by 29%".

The researchers demonstrated that a four-week resveratrol supplementation was associated with a decrease in food intake and a reduction in seasonal body-mass gain. The response to resveratrol supplementation also involved significant changes in the animals' body temperatures. According to Dr Aujard, "These results provide novel information on the potential effects of resveratrol on energy metabolism and control of body mass in a primate".

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Notes to Editors

1. Resveratrol suppresses body mass gain in a seasonal non-human primate model of obesity
Alexandre Dal-Pan, Stephane Blanc and Fabienne Aujard
BMC Physiology (in press)

During embargo, article available here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/2182279043377416_article.pdf?random=616819

After the embargo, article available at the journal website: http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcphysiol/

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication.

2. BMC Physiology is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in cellular, tissue-level, organismal, functional, and developmental aspects of physiological processes. BMC Physiology (ISSN 1472-6793) is indexed/tracked/covered by PubMed, MEDLINE, BIOSIS, CAS, EMBASE, Scopus, Zoological Record, CABI and Google Scholar.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.


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