US research finds that resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine touted for its healthful and anti-aging properties, may not offer the same benefits for healthy people, at least in supplement form.

Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, recruited 29 healthy women, most of them in their late 50s, for a 12-week study. The women took either daily resveratrol supplements or a placebo, with the findings revealing no differences between the groups in terms of body fat, resting metabolic rate, fat levels in the blood, or markers of inflammation at the end of 12 weeks.

The findings were published online Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Since prior resveratol studies have linked the compound to improved metabolic function and even preventing and reversing diabetes and heart disease, the researchers say their findings are "surprising."

"Our data demonstrate that resveratrol supplementation does not have metabolic benefits in relatively healthy, middle-aged women," says senior investigator Dr. Samuel Klein, director of Washington University's Center for Human Nutrition.

"Few studies have evaluated the effects of resveratrol in people," he states. "Those studies were conducted in people with diabetes, older adults with impaired glucose tolerance or obese people who had more metabolic problems than the women we studied." That said, Klein adds the resveratrol could still benefit people who are less healthy than the women in the study.

In recent years, annual US sales of resveratrol supplements have risen to $30 million.

Access the study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413112003993

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Resveratrol supplements may not benefit healthy people