Grapes altered gene expression in mice, reducing fatty liver, extending lifespan, and improving brain health, highlighting their potential long-term health benefits.
In comprehensive studies published recently in the journal Foods, it was reported that the long-term addition of grapes to the diet of mice leads to unique gene expression patterns, reduces fatty liver, and extends the lifespan of animals consuming a high-fat western style diet. The research team was led by Dr. John Pezzuto of Western New England University.
Pezzuto, who is an author of over 600 papers in the scientific literature, said he was especially amazed by these results. “We have all heard the saying ‘you are what you eat’ which is obviously true since we all start out as a fetus and end up being an adult by eating food. But these studies add an entirely new dimension to that old saying. Not only is food converted to our body parts, but as shown by our work with dietary grapes, it actually changes our genetic expression. That is truly remarkable.”
Prevention of Fatty Liver and Metabolic Changes
What is the effect of this alteration of gene expression? As shown in this paper, fatty liver is prevented or delayed. Fatty liver is a condition that affects around 25% of the world’s population and can eventually lead to untoward effects, including liver cancer. The genes responsible for the development of fatty liver were altered in a beneficial way by consuming grapes. In ancillary work, not only is the expression of genes altered, but metabolism is also changed by dietary grapes. This study was recently published by a collaborative team led by Dr. Jeffrey Idle in the journal Food & Function.
In addition to genes related to fatty liver, the work found that the grape-supplemented diets increased levels of antioxidant genes. According to Pezzuto, “Many people think about taking dietary supplements that boast high antioxidant activity. In actual fact, though, you cannot consume enough of an antioxidant to make a big difference. But if you change the level of antioxidant gene expression, as we observed with grapes added to the diet, the result is a catalytic response that can make a real difference.”
Lifespan Extension with Grape-Supplemented Diet
Another remarkable effect demonstrated in this research was the ability of grapes to extend the lifespan of mice given a high-fat western pattern diet. The high-fat western pattern diet is known to be associated with adverse conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. Adding grapes to the diet, which did not affect the rate of consumption or body weight, delayed natural death. Although translating years of lifespan from a mouse to a human is not an exact science, Pezzuto notes that his best estimate is the change observed in the study would correspond to an additional 4-5 years in the life of a human.
Precisely how all of this relates to humans remains to be seen, but it is clear that adding grapes to the diet changes gene expression in more than just the liver. In studies recently published in the journal Antioxidants by Pezzuto and his team of researchers, it was found that grape consumption alters gene expression in the brain. At the same time, grape consumption had positive effects on behavior and cognition that were impaired by a high-fat diet, suggesting that the alteration of gene expression was what produced this beneficial response. More studies are needed, but it is notable that a team led by Silverman at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) reported that the daily administration of grapes had a protective effect on brain metabolism. This new research indicates that this is due to alteration of gene expression.
References:
“Consumption of Grapes Modulates Gene Expression, Reduces Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, and Extends Longevity in Female C57BL/6J Mice Provided with a High-Fat Western-Pattern Diet” by Asim Dave, Eun-Jung Park, Avinash Kumar, Falguni Parande, Diren Beyoğlu, Jeffrey R. Idle and John M. Pezzuto, 5 July 2022, Foods.
DOI: 10.3390/foods11131984
” Addition of grapes to both a standard and a high-fat Western pattern diet modifies hepatic and urinary metabolite profiles in the mouse” by Diren Beyoğlu, Eun-Jung Park, Adolfo Quiñones-Lombraña, Asim Dave, Falguni Parande, John M. Pezzuto and Jeffrey R. Idle, 20 July 2022, Food & Function.
DOI: 10.1039/D2FO00961G
“Effect of Dietary Grapes on Female C57BL6/J Mice Consuming a High-Fat Diet: Behavioral and Genetic Changes” by Falguni Parande, Asim Dave, Eun-Jung Park, Christopher McAllister and John M. Pezzuto, 18 February 2022, Antioxidants.
DOI: 10.3390/antiox11020414
The grapes used in these studies were provided by the California Table Grape Commission, who partially supported the work as well. Kathleen Nave, president of the commission, noted that the grape growers of California are proud to have supported grape research at over 70 institutions throughout the US and the world for over 20 years. She stated “Grape growers in California have had the privilege of supporting scores of projects over the years. Some studies have shown positive effects on health, and others have not been as promising. The results reported by John Pezzuto and his team are exciting and rewarding on many levels. The potential for improvements in human health is significant as is the strength of the data which logically supports the need for follow-up work in human clinical trials. All of this is rewarding to the growers who have funded research year after year with the sole objective of following the science and learning what we could from high-caliber peer-reviewed research. Studies like the ones reported here are not only rewarding to grape growers and of interest to the scientific community, but are of value to everyone who wants to optimize their health and understands that what we eat matters. We can’t ask for more than that.”
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19 Comments
Good Morning,
Thinking to restart consumption of Grapes after reading this article. I appreciate your health related articles to read. Thank U.
We’ve known this since the days of Sumaria and Babylon. Some science was done by the ancient Greeks on the virtues of grapes and wine.
Is the supposed benefit from red grapes, white grapes, both ?
Health benefits from both green and red grapes, or just the red grape?
What about grape seed extract
Brought to you by the Table Grape Assoc? Ha ha.
Is the support from the grape association an association or a correlation? Lol
More grapes for me then, yummy😋
Thank you for this article. Please,what type of grapes are better, or best? And in what quantity per day or week? Thank you.
What grapes were usee? Did they contain seeds?
I checked twice but never saw consumption specifics on grapes. It would be beneficial if the author told us how many and often we need to eat grapes to realize the benefits he writes about. As is, the article is mildly interesting but useless in application without guidance.
They used grape powder in the study with the mice.
Anybody around here ever hear of resveratrol? It’s 20Y old and is found in (mostly red) grape seeds, and has ALL of these properties, Mr. Obvious …
What about ALL THE PESTICIDES in grapes?????
It’s important to note that they used grape powder, so it was concentrated.
You’d likely be better off just taking a resveratol supplement that way you can avoid the copious amounts of sugar in grapes that can lead to pancreatic cancer as well as a host of other issues. Not at all saying moderate use of grapes isn’t fine, but in order to see these same results the amount of them you’d need to eat would make you type 2 diabetic or feed the cancer in your system and cause problems.
It’s always VERY important to distinguish the fat they use in studies to prove it’s damaging to the body, it’s almost always soy or vegetable fats, not true lipase.
People have eaten REAL fat since the beginning of humans ability to speak, it’s in fact WHY we have the ability to use vocal language at all, and what made us leap forward in IQ.
Soy, vegetable and seed oils are what cause the horrible health issues seen in the US, from dementia to cancer, from arthritis to infertility, we can thank the fake oils for this, as in no time in our history have we ever experienced these problems at this rate, period.
If you check the timeline it’s clear what’s the source.
This is something that has always been known, however, I am surprised by the advice of eating more grapes than taking a supplement. Grapes are too high in sugar to eat copious amounts…much better to take a reservatrol supplement and add a handful of grapes to your diet daily or so..a good reservatrol supplement will give you more in one capsule than eating bags of it a day..
This is a study about mice. Not humans.
Interesting. So what’s better, red or white grapes & how much should you eat daily. What about the sugar in grapes that would affect health?
Read this story on another site that included more details of the study parameters. You need to eat nearly 2 cups of grapes everyday to see these benefits. Not sure it’s worth an additional 200+ calories and 47g of sugar daily. Plus, as others have pointed out, it was paid for by the industry that benefits from it – not exactly a neutral source.