Resveratrol has long been touted in news outlets and health blogs as a 2000s miracle product, with little evidence it helps people. It instead benefited from a kind of 'Glaxo would not paid $720 million if it didn't work' veneer.

One of the claims is that it should be used  as a complement to exercise and to enhance performance but it not only may not enhance the effects of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), it may hurt it.

Resveratrol occurs naturally in the skin of red grapes and has long been touted for health benefits connected to a Mediterranean-style diet. Recently, it's become possible to purchase resveratrol supplements, which are often marketed as "exercise mimics."

Fortunately for supplement salespeople, the evidence against resveratrol is as scant as evidence for it. In the case of a new paper saying it reverse the benefits of exercise, a small study of 16 people. Participants who engaged in less than three hours of aerobic exercise per week at the time of enrollment were asked to perform HIIT three times per week for four weeks. During this time, participants were administered daily doses of either RSV or a placebo.

Results after the four-week study showed that RSV supplementation may actually oppose the effects of exercise alone. In fact, the placebo group showed an increase in some of the benefits associated with physical activity as opposed to the group taking RSV whose physical fitness didn't improve.

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"The results we saw suggest that concurrent exercise training and RSV supplementation may alter the body's normal training response induced by low-volume HIIT," says Dr. Brendon Gurd, a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queens University. "The data set we recorded during this study clearly demonstrates that
resveratrol
supplementation doesn't augment training, but may impair the affect it has on the body."

Results observed by the team question the ability of
resveratrol
to act as an exercise-enhancing supplement and highlight the need for further research.

Published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism. Source: Queen's University