In a study conducted at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo, researchers in the opthamology department working in conjunction with pharmacologists at the R.W. Johnson medical school in New Jersey, have discovered that resverstrol, when administered in very high doses, significantly reduces the formation of new blood vessels in mouse retinas.  This discovery is significant in that the overgrowth of blood vessels in the eye can result in blindness and macular degeneration.  Researchers have cautioned that the amount of resveratrol administered to the mice retinas is considerably greater than what is contained in several bottles of red wine.

Researchers used a laser to make four incisions on the mouse retina which, in turn, stimulated blood vessel growth (angiogenesis) in an effort to repair the trauma.  The control group received no resveratrol while two other groups received either 22.5mg/kg or 45mg/kg.  After just seven days of the trial, the mice receiving the higher dose of resveratrol displayed only one percent of the new blood vessel growth as the control group.  The details of this study are published in July issue of the American Journal of Pathology.

Researchers say that this discovery could play an important therapeutic role some day in staving off blindness in disease states such as diabetes and in reducing age related ocular diseases.