A question of cooperation
European researchers have provided a possible explanation for the health benefits of a compound in red wine. In the process, they also highlighted a regimen for improving heart health that does not involve popping pills.
As detailed in the November 2 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers from the Netherlands and Switzerland found that in humans, the chemical compound resveratrol makes the body think and act as if it is on a calorie restriction diet. Found in red wine, resveratrol has been linked to reduced risk of heart disease and lower blood pressure.
Several previous studies have shown that people who reduce their calorie intake by roughly 25 percent without reducing their daily intake of nutrients have lower metabolisms, which can slow the aging process.
In the current experiment, several obese adults were asked to take either a resveratrol supplement or a placebo every day for a month, but not to change their diet or lifestyle in any other way. At the end of the month, the researchers found physical changes such as lower blood pressures in the men who took the resveratrol supplement compared to those who took the placebo.
They concluded that the compound’s effects on the human body are similar to what has been seen with people on the calorie restriction diet.
Reducing one’s caloric intake has been shown to have beneficial effects on conditions such as obesity and diabetes, but, the researchers from Europe noted, “eating less for the sake of creating a desirable metabolic profile is unlikely to gain widespread compliance.” The key to getting people to consider cutting down on calories may lie in getting them to work together with doctors and medical researchers to improve their health rather than in just following instructions.
Collaborating over decisions involving food is something humans do very well, noted another team of European researchers in a report published October 25 in the journal Current Biology. They pointed out that data from early human societies showed people have been working together to gather food for the daily meal for several thousands of years. This collaborative behavior, they added, may have been the basis for motivating humans to work together “in ways that eventually led to the many complexities of modern human societies.”
In contrast, they noted, non-human primates such as apes and chimpanzees might have social groups but they don’t work together when it comes to gathering food. To learn more about how the idea of collaborating toward a common goal evolved, the research team compared the efforts of human 3-year-olds and chimpanzees to work together for food.
In the study, pairs of human or chimp participants were paired off and then placed in a testing area where they were physically separated by a wall. On one side of the room, one participant could simultaneously pull on two ropes to bring a board of food closer to him or her. On the other side of the room, both participants had to simultaneously pull on the length of rope to bring the board of food closer to themselves.
The researchers found that the children were more likely to work together to bring the food closer to themselves, while the chimps were more likely to opt for the solo approach and pull in the board of food accessible to just one member of the pair.
The results, said the researchers, showed that the human tendency to work together, be it for food or another goal, provides incentive to achieve the intended outcome. “Humans might therefore be especially motivated to do things,” the team reported, “through collaborative efforts with others.”
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