Age-specific mortality rates from cardiovascular disease, peripheral artery disease and stroke increase exponentially with age, which imposes a huge financial burden on the health care systems in United States and Europe. Thus, there is an urgent need for effective therapeutic strategies that have the potential to promote vascular health in the elderly. There is increasing evidence that the dietary regimen termed caloric restriction confers significant cardiovascular protective effects both in aged laboratory animals and humans. Because it is difficult to achieve long-term voluntary caloric restriction in the elderly due to lack of appropriate compliance, there is an urgent need for pharmacological treatments that are able to mimic some of the beneficial vasoprotective effects of caloric restriction. During the past decade dietary supplementation with trans-resveratrol (3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene) has emerged as a promising approach to counteract age-related vascular diseases. Resveratrol is a naturally occurring polyphenol found in more than 70 species of plants, which was shown to confer diverse physiological effects in laboratory animals including cancer protection, microvascular protection, neuroprotection, cardioprotection and anti-diabetic effects. Many of these effects appear to mimic the action of caloric restriction. Importantly, the available evidence supports the hypothesis that mitochondrial protective effects of resveratrol contributes to its anti-aging action that can prevent/delay the development of age-related diseases in the cardiovascular system. Further studies using resveratrol as a dietary supplement to promote mitochondrial health, improve coronary blood flow and preserve cerebrovascular function in the elderly are warranted.

Support: 

American Federation for Aging Research, the University of Oklahoma College Of Medicine Alumni Association, the NIH (AG031085, AT006526, HL077256 and Hungarian Sci. Res. Funds/OTKA K71591)