Best Resveratrol Supplement

For many of us, aging can come with numerous unpleasant realities. The vigor of youth fades, and we find ourselves increasingly wrinkled, tired, fragile, and, in some cases, diseased. That all sounds pretty grim, but there are certain things we can do — foods we can eat or supplements we can take — that have the potential to offset this process.

Resveratrol, a polyphenol found in fruits, nuts, wine, and other foods, has been studied extensively for its ability to combat the effects of aging, from mitigating inflammation and oxidative stress to improving memory and skin quality.1

Our team dug deeper into the scientific research behind resveratrol and acquired several of the market’s top products to try for ourselves. We share our findings here so that you can decide if resveratrol is right for you.

If you’re pressed for time, here’s a quick rundown of our resveratrol recommendations:

At Innerbody Research, we extensively test each health service we review, including these resveratrol supplements. For this guide to the best resveratrol supplement, we extensively reviewed the scientific literature pertaining to the substance’s potential benefits and side effects, its mechanisms of action, and how its absorption impacts dosing recommendations from different companies.

We also got hands-on with the top products on the market, evaluating everything from their companies’ customer service to their taste and, to a small degree, their efficacy. Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this guide was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

To evaluate and compare the top resveratrol products on the market, we applied a small set of criteria that we believe would matter most to potential consumers. These include effectiveness, cost, safety, and convenience.

Let’s examine these criteria more closely.

Effectiveness

Advantage: Toniiq Resveratrol 1000

There are several aspects of a given resveratrol supplement that will influence its potential efficacy. The first issue is whether resveratrol can effectively do what you want it to, such as reducing the intensity at which you’re aging, fighting certain cancers, or combating inflammation. Whether it can do some or any of these things is still a matter of some debate, but we’ll cover the supplement’s general potential for efficacy further down.

A more immediate measure of potential effectiveness comes from the delivery method of a given resveratrol supplement. For decades, resveratrol research has consistently highlighted issues around its bioavailability — the efficiency with which any drug or supplement can reach its target and perform its intended job. While the absorption rate for oral resveratrol is as high as 75%, almost all of that is broken down through first-pass digestion and never reaches any target tissues outside the evenly spread delivery from normal blood flow.2 And unlike certain drugs whose uptake can be improved by the presence of food — especially fatty foods — food intake appears to blunt the absorption of resveratrol.3

The most common approach to solving the resveratrol bioavailability conundrum has been to micronize it. Micronization shrinks and standardizes molecule sizes to improve bioavailability. In resveratrol studies, micronization increased bioavailability by up to 400%.4 Liposomal preparations may offer even greater bioavailability by allowing the substance to enter the bloodstream having bypassed hepatic metabolism. Liposomal formulations of resveratrol and curcumin showed up to a 2,000% increase in bioavailability in mice.5 Meanwhile, a human study comparing pure resveratrol to several different liposomal formulations found only marginal increases in efficacy when considering its effects on reactive oxygen species.33

But here’s the problem with relying on anything other than basic trans-resveratrol in capsule form: the science isn’t there yet. Despite those impressive studies promoting liposomal and micronized formulations, they’re outliers in a sea of research focusing on simple trans-resveratrol. And given our commitment to following the science, our review of the available research leads us to conclude that it’s not yet possible to predict the efficacy of these novel formulations.

That’s why Toniiq’s Resveratrol 1000 has an advantage here. It provides the same form of resveratrol used in the vast majority of clinical research, and it does so in 500mg capsules. Together, 500mg and 1,000mg make up the lion’s share of the effective doses we’ve seen in human research, allowing customers to choose whether to take 500mg or 1,000mg, based on their goals.

Cost

Advantage: Vitacost Tran-Resveratrol 250mg

You might be willing to make some specific concessions to save money on your resveratrol investment. Among them, opting for a less concentrated resveratrol could offer the best deals. When you look closely at resveratrol labels, you’ll sometimes see the ingredients listed as “standardized” to include a certain amount of trans-resveratrol, with 98-99% being the gold standard.

A 50% concentration is also quite common, which can save you money despite leaving in a lot of filler material from whatever botanical ingredient the company uses as its resveratrol source. You might be able to save even more money by opting for a non-standardized resveratrol, but we don’t recommend it, as it becomes too difficult to know how much you’re taking.

Here’s a quick look at how costs from our top picks compare:

As you can see, Vitacost takes a much more budget-friendly approach, with its 500mg capsules each delivering 250mg of trans-resveratrol. That makes it a great choice for users looking to save money, but it also makes it a good place to start for anyone trying to figure out the best dose for them, as they can titrate up from a low but potentially effective 250mg dose at gradual 250mg increments until they reach their preferred maintenance dose.

The resveratrol and ferulic acid serum from The Ordinary technically has a lower cost per dose than other products, but it’s critical to remember that the serum in question is a topical cosmetic additive, not something that’s safe to ingest or intended to work on anything other than skin health.

Safety

Advantage: Toniiq Resveratrol 1000

By 2019, over 20,000 research papers had been written on resveratrol and nearly 200 human trials completed or underway by that same year.6 The vast majority of that research has shown resveratrol to be safe for most users at commercially available recommended doses.

In many human studies, adverse effects are not seen from doses below 1,000mg/day. Studies looking into doses at or above 1,000mg/day reveal increasing adverse effects in a dose-dependent manner, including increases in biomarkers related to cardiovascular disease.7

Those side effects also included:8

• Nausea
• Flatulence
• Abdominal discomfort
• Diarrhea
• Other GI issues

Another study looking at a daily 5g dose of a patented form of resveratrol designed to increase bioavailability saw high rates of adverse effects, including two deaths among patients with bone marrow cancer.9 One of those deaths is suspected to have been caused by the disease itself, and the other is credited to this particular resveratrol formulation, which has lost research funding and will not come to market.

Ultimately, it seems that standard forms of resveratrol are safe up to around 1,000mg, and doses above that come with increasing risks for both GI and cardiovascular health.7

The relative ceiling of 1,000mg is an important thing to consider when looking at liposomal and micronized formulas, as well. Most of the safety studies use standard trans-resveratrol in capsules, with no novel formulations that could increase bioavailability. Theoretically, that increased bioavailability could also increase side effects, which is why we avoided a liposomal recommendation for this criterion.

We view Toniiq’s Resveratrol 1000 as a solid pick for safety. The company’s 1,000mg dose comes as a two-capsuel serving, so you can take just 500mg to start if you want to be on the lookout for side effects. Vitacost’s 250mg capsules are even more titration-friendly, but they’re a 50% trans-resveratrol standardization, with the other 50% essentially amounting to filler. And Toniiq provides a level of lab testing for its supplements that Vitacost doesn’t, albeit not a third-party lab test like you get from Renue by Science for its liposomal formulas.

Convenience

Advantage: Renue by Science NMN + Resveratrol LIPO Gel

Provided you’re also interested in the potential of NMN to fight aging and age-related disease, Renue’s LIPO gel containing both NMN and resveratrol is undeniably the most convenient way to take either supplement. It’s a straightforward pump bottle you use to squirt two sprays of the supplement into your mouth once per day.

You don’t have to bother getting a drink to swallow capsules or mixing a powder into liquid to reap its benefits. And our testers liked the taste as well, which they described as a mix between SweeTarts candy and DayQuil.

The customer experience with Renue is equally straightforward, though it’s a little inconvenient that the company doesn’t offer the ease of a subscription system. We always prefer subscription systems, even when they don’t offer savings, as they make it so you don’t have to remember to order your next shipment. With long-term supplements like resveratrol and NMN, missing a few doses isn’t going to destroy your progress, but if you’re someone who has a hard time sticking to a supplement regimen, that kind of gap can knock you out of the habit.

ProHealth Longevity has subscriptions that offer both convenience and savings, but the company’s site sometimes makes it hard to find the exact quantities you’re looking for, and the powder is a pain to mix.

Resveratrol is a polyphenol found in various foods, including grapes, blueberries, peanuts, and red wine. It’s been studied for numerous potential health benefits, ranging from anti-inflammation to lifespan extension. You can get a fair amount of resveratrol from foods that are rich in it, but supplementation may provide a significant boost, depending on dose and form.34

At least with regard to life extension, the story of resveratrol is steeped in some scandal. In 1999, researchers studying genetic links to aging identified sirtuins as a potential candidate for slowing the aging process.10 The human body contains seven sirtuins, all of which are involved in various signaling pathways, including the signaling of certain genetic changes.

A few years later, another research team led by a biologist named David Sinclair identified resveratrol as a potential activator of SIRT1, a sirtuin critical to aging and cellular metabolism.35 Sinclair’s research continued to support resveratrol as a potent anti-aging supplement, all while Sinclair set up Sirtris, a private pharmaceutical firm that quickly developed a patented form of resveratrol. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) purchased Sinclair’s company for the tidy sum of $720 million, only to discover that they could not successfully reproduce Sinclair’s results.11

By this point, research into resveratrol had already taken off, as Sinclair’s savvy for self-promotion and media relations had made resveratrol an easy target for researchers looking to get published in scientific journals. The good news is that much of this research yielded promising results in fields outside of direct lifespan extension.

After several years of unsuccessful research, GSK shuttered its Sirtris offices and ceased research into resveratrol as a lifespan extender.12

The takeaway here is that Sinclair may have knowingly produced unreliable results with the intention of ratcheting up public excitement over resveratrol, only to sell high and move on, an accusation GSK failed to prove in court due to technicalities in Sinclair’s research. But the truth behind that specific scenario regarding resveratrol doesn’t undermine the results of thousands of other studies that have seen positive results against other diseases and disorders.

Whether or not resveratrol’s ability to activate SIRT1 is supported in the latest research, many other papers have illustrated its ability to provide benefits outside of sirtuin pathways. In fact, one of the issues with resveratrol is that it has so many potential targets and so many possible mechanisms of action that it’s been difficult for researchers to identify a way to maximize its potential. Different doses have varying effects on disparate tissues and disorders therein — a phenomenon researchers sometimes refer to as promiscuity.

But there are some sound theories about certain effects that have support in multiple research papers, though they tend to vary depending on what disease or disorder researchers are hoping to address. Let’s take a quick look at some of the problems that scientists currently believe resveratrol supplementation may help treat:

Of course, this is just a small sampling of the thousands of studies that have been performed on resveratrol for its use in a seemingly endless number of cases. To date, the research hasn’t revealed an ideal dose or form for treating one disease or another, but given resveratrol’s safety profile at low and medium doses, its potential is good enough for many people to consider trying it.

Who can benefit from resveratrol supplements?

While resveratrol research is largely inconclusive or contradictory, it appears to have some potential in a wide range of areas, making it a smart addition to your regimen if you’re looking to throw everything you can at a given problem. There aren’t too many people for whom resveratrol is an overtly bad idea.

Those who might want to consider resveratrol more than others would be anyone struggling with or who has a family history of:

• Certain cancers
• Dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders
• Heart disease
• Progressive muscle loss
• Chronic inflammation or immunological issues
• Osteoporosis

Who might want an alternative to resveratrol?

If you’re generally healthy and don’t have a family history of any of the issues listed above, you may want to avoid resveratrol, if only to save you the cost of the supplement.

The only potential benefit for such healthy people would be the theoretical lifespan extension that has been illustrated in a few studies. But it’s important to remember that these studies are the ones most closely connected to the controversy surrounding resveratrol, and they’ve been the hardest for researchers to successfully reproduce.6

That said, if you see resveratrol in a complex anti-aging supplement, you shouldn’t immediately assume bad faith on the part of the company. Many companies develop anti-aging supplements that tackle individual aging and mortality risks, and much of resveratrol’s most positive research has illustrated its potential to help with numerous age-related diseases and disorders, just not necessarily lifespan itself.

While higher doses of resveratrol have been associated with certain adverse effects, lower doses appear to be safe for most people.7 In many cases, potential benefits clearly outweigh potential harms.

But there are some risks associated with resveratrol that are worth considering, especially if you’re interested in taking a dose of 1,000mg or higher. The most intense of those risks would be resveratrol toxicity, causing damage to the liver or kidneys, but these effects were typically only seen in animal models that fed rats or mice the human equivalent of about 40g/day, a significant leap above the typical human dose.

More common side effects at lower doses include gastrointestinal discomfort and other GI symptoms like diarrhea and nausea.

One known property of resveratrol that may cause it to interact with other medications or exacerbate certain disorders is its potential to degrade blood clotting.22 If you’re on medication or have any disorder that also reduces blood clotting, resveratrol may not be suitable for you.

Resveratrol deaths in human trials

It’s true that one resveratrol study involved the death of two participants, but it’s critical to know the specifics of the participants and the methods of the study to understand how and why this happened, as well as what it might mean for the average person taking resveratrol. The 2012 study in question looked at the effect of a 5g daily dose of SRT501, a specialized form of resveratrol developed by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, in 24 patients with relapsed or refractory myeloma (bone marrow cancer).9

These patients had a case that either resisted other therapies or found only temporary success with other therapies only for the disease to recur.

Of the two deaths in the study, one of the patients is believed to have died from his myeloma, and the other due to effects of the large resveratrol dose.

More broadly, SRT501 at 5g was associated with significant adverse effects including:9

• Nausea: 79%
• Diarrhea: 71%
• Vomiting: 54%
• Fatigue: 46%
• Anemia: 38%
• Renal failure 21%

Now, these were people with significant illness being given a version of resveratrol whose research was halted for safety concerns, specifically risk of nephrotoxicity. It wouldn’t make much sense to compare a 5g dose of a highly specialized resveratrol drug to 1g or less of regular or micronized resveratrol.

If this study gives you pause, however, there are alternatives to explore for the specific benefits resveratrol may offer, which we’ll detail in our alternatives section later on.

Best for most people

For most people, accessing a reliable dose of high-quality resveratrol at a decent price would be the best way to incorporate the ingredient into their regimen. Given resveratrol’s popularity, that would also seem like a pretty straightforward task at the outset. But we were surprised by the number of companies either not standardizing their resveratrol or at least not advertising its specific concentration.

We also found the range of doses (and, in some cases, the specific doses employed) to be a head-scratcher. Research pretty clearly indicates a relative threshold of 1,000mg before adverse effects start becoming a burden, as well as a baseline of around 250mg for efficacy in some parameters. Doses of 500-1,000mg appear to be the most effective without introducing too much risk. But available resveratrol doses on the market are all over the place, ranging from just a few dozen milligrams up to well over 1,000.

That’s where Toniiq seems to have separated itself. The company makes a little over 80 products, most of which are single-ingredient supplements. Four of those products contain resveratrol, of which only two contain resveratrol without other active ingredients. Those two resveratrol-only products offer either a 600mg serving size from two 300mg capsules or a 1,000mg serving size from two 500mg capsules.

Based on the research we’ve reviewed, the 1,000mg option is the best for most people because it aligns with the majority of research into resveratrol at specific doses. It also allows users to choose between a 500mg and a 1,000mg dose, either of which should be effective for most concerns. And if you choose the 500mg route, you essentially cut the cost of your resveratrol in half.

Toniiq resveratrol pricing

You can either purchase a single container of Toniiq resveratrol or sign up for a subscription, which knocks off 15% and unlocks free shipping. Here’s what the pricing looks like:

Keep in mind that if you choose to take half doses of Resveratrol 1000, you’ll essentially get 60 doses per container, cutting your per-serving cost to just $0.56 with a one-time purchase or $0.47 on a subscription. You can get free shipping if you subscribe or spend over $49, the latter of which would require that you purchase more than just a single bottle of resveratrol.

Toniiq’s money-back guarantee is also very good, though not the best in our guide (second to ProHealth Longevity’s 100-day guarantee). Its 60-day policy is long enough for you to try an entire bottle of Resveratrol 1000 at the 500mg half dose before deciding whether it’s right for you.

Our Toniiq Resveratrol 1000 testing experience

Toniiq was a perfectly fine supplement company to deal with. We’ve included several of its products in our guides throughout the years, and they’ve all been solid choices, even if they lacked any particular “wow” factor. With resveratrol, the science consistently steered us away from novel delivery mechanisms, so the simplicity here was welcome.

The capsules themselves are a hair on the large side, but no bigger than most others in this guide. Shipping was fast and included regular updates on the delivery process. And our interactions with customer service, such as our inquiry into the company’s testing specifics, were met with satisfactory answers in a reasonable amount of time.

Best NAD+ booster with resveratrol

OMRE is a boutique brand that only focuses on a few products. It only recently expanded its catalog to a handful of supplements, but what it lacks in variety it mostly makes up for in well-considered formulas.

Its NMN + Resveratrol is a good example of this, combining two ingredients that both boast science supporting anti-aging benefits (NMN and resveratrol) with a third that’s been shown to increase the absorption of the other two (BioPerine). The company also has a third party test all of its products, and you can find the results from those tests on each product page — a level of transparency we certainly appreciate.

If there’s anything that undercuts OMRE’s standing it’s that the company positions itself at the higher end of the market for cost, with a single 30-day supply of this product actually costing more than something like Perpetua.Life’s AEON, which contains a similar dose of NMN and a smaller dose of resveratrol but also 11 other anti-aging ingredients for about $10 less per month. That said, OMRE’s NMN and resveratrol doses are better-aligned with clinical research into either ingredient, and many of those other 11 ingredients in AEON are, as we’ll discuss later in Perpetua.Life’s section, either underdosed or lacking in high-quality human research.

That leaves you with a product that’s more expensive than numerous similar products on the market, but one whose simplicity and transparency might make it worth the cost.

Here’s a look at the ingredients:

• Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN): 500mg
• Trans-resveratrol (98%): 500mg
• BioPerine: 5mg

While we’ve talked a lot about resveratrol up to this point, it would help to shine a light on the other two ingredients in this formula:

Together, NMN and resveratrol have the potential to fuel some genuine improvements in overall health and aging, with that little boost from black pepper taking things even further. There are better NAD+ boosters on the market, but we recently concluded in an update to our guide to the best NAD+ boosters that OMRE has produced the best combination of a NAD+ precursor and resveratrol.

OMRE pricing

OMRE employs both subscription and bulk discounts you can combine to get the most savings. Unlike Toniiq, however, subscribing to a one-bottle monthly delivery doesn’t unlock free shipping. The company has an $80 free-shipping threshold, instead, and only a bulk purchase can take you above that. Here’s how it works out:

Shipping adds about $7 to single-bottle orders, increasing the cost by about 10%. OMRE’s money-back guarantee is also one of the shortest in this guide at just 30 days. Granted, most effects from NMN and resveratrol would take longer than even the longest guarantee in this guide to manifest, but it’s still worth considering if you were to experience adverse effects shortly after a month had passed.

Our OMRE testing experience

Beyond adding NMN and BioPerine to the formula, OMRE takes a few extra steps to justify its position as a more expensive resveratrol product. The company’s website is highly polished, and its product packaging is even more so. Communication is a hair slow via email, but our inquiries about third-party testing specifics and shipping logistics were all handled thoroughly.

The NMN + Resveratrol capsules are about the same size as Toniiq’s, which is to say larger than many but smaller than some others (including Perpetua.Life’s large AEON capsules). Shipping was on the slow side, however, with about 11 days elapsing between the time we placed our order and when we received it.

Best powder

ProHealth Longevity has over 100 items in its catalog, most of which are single-ingredient capsules or powders. While ProHealth offers both resveratrol and NAD+ boosters, it does not offer a combination of the two in one product. That said, its resveratrol capsules also contain 420mg of a proprietary blend containing quercetin, red wine extract, green tea extract, and BioPerine (black pepper extract). You can’t get resveratrol capsules from ProHealth that don’t include this blend.

ProHealth’s powdered resveratrol is micronized, which shrinks and standardizes the size of the resveratrol molecules. This enhances absorption and improves bioavailability in studies of numerous micronized substances, including resveratrol.4 That’s a double-edged sword, though, as improved bioavailability combined with a high dose may increase the chances of adverse reactions, and research hasn’t codified how much more bioavailable a micronized formula would be compared to a non-micronized formula.

The company’s recommended resveratrol dose in both capsule and powder form is 1,000mg. That’s right up against the limit where we’ve seen mild adverse events kick in in some studies. Fortunately, that dose comes from two capsules, so you can take just one to reduce the odds of a reaction and titrate up if you feel fine, especially since the capsules aren’t micronized.

However, halving the dose would likely make doses of the other active ingredients too low to be reliably effective. Those ingredients are hidden behind a proprietary blend in the first place, so it’s unclear which ones may be effective and which might not. Here’s a look at the formula in ProHealth’s capsules:

• Trans-resveratrol: 1,000mg
• Proprietary blend: 420mg

The contents of that proprietary blend are quercetin, organic red wine extract, organic green tea leaf extract, and BioPerine (a branded black pepper extract).

For the powder, we recommend starting at 250mg or 300mg and titrating up to 500mg after that. You can continue titrating up to the 1,000mg dose if you like, but your chances of encountering minor side effects may increase.

ProHealth Longevity pricing

Here’s how ProHealth’s pricing shakes out for the capsules:

But ProHealth was granted our pick for best powder, so let’s look at those prices:

As you can see, the two highest quantities of resveratrol powder aren’t eligible for any subscription discount. That disparity in discounts makes the subscriptions to the 100g or 250g option a better deal than the one-time purchase of either the 500g or 1,000g.

Still, almost every quantity here comes in at a better price than Renue’s powder, which costs $0.86/gram. Only the one-time purchase of ProHealth’s smallest quantity costs more. And when you consider that Renue’s powdered resveratrol isn’t micronized, the ProHealth option becomes that much better of a deal.

Our ProHealth Longevity testing experience

Given the fact that there are no additional ingredients in ProHealth Longevity’s resveratrol powder, we weren’t sure what we were in for in terms of taste. Of course, the first test was to see how well it dissolved in water, as micronized resveratrol should dissolve more completely than regular resveratrol powder.

Compared to Renue’s powdered resveratrol, we couldn't see a difference in how well either dissolved. Both more or less completely dissolved in the cool water we used. And neither product had much of a taste. There was a light earthiness added to the beverage, but that was it. It’s definitely something you could consume daily in a glass of water or any other liquid.

Best anti-aging complex with resveratrol

Perpetua.Life is a wellness and anti-aging company with a streamlined collection of supplements designed to improve cellular health, slow visible signs of aging, and fight hair loss. One of its very first products was AEON, an anti-aging complex containing 13 ingredients, several of which appear at good doses.

Here’s the list:

• Vitamin B2: 1mg
• Vitamin B6: 5mg
• Vitamin B12: 2mcg
• Nicotinamide DUO: 500mg (400mg NMN, 100mg NR)
• Quercetin: 250mg
• Trans-resveratrol: 150mg
• Fisetin: 100mg
• Astragalus: 100mg
• L-Theanine: 100mg
• EGCG: 100mg
• TMG: 85mg
• Piperine: 10mg
• Spermidine: 10mg

The formula relies on a liposomal delivery matrix, and there isn’t enough science behind the liposomal delivery of any of these ingredients to be able to say with confidence what their effective doses might be. We’ve seen liposomal research impart bioavailability increases ranging from 15% to over 1,000%.

That said, it’s still important for us to look more closely at a few of these ingredients and discuss their anti-aging potential.

While there are other ingredients in AEON’s formula we could explore, most either lack sufficient clinical evidence or are present at doses too low to be effective in most users. However, it’s worth noting the resveratrol dose, in particular. It’s only 150mg, far below the 500mg we recommend for most users and even below the 250mg at which positive effects begin in most low-dose studies.

It’s possible that liposomal delivery will increase that 150mg dose to something more effective, but there isn’t enough science to bet on it. That said, AEON is the best anti-aging complex on the market that also includes resveratrol, even though it’s not the star of the show in this formula.

Perpetua.Life AEON pricing

Perpetua.Life has just two purchase options for AEON: one-time purchases and monthly subscriptions. Even with a subscription, you can only choose every 30 or 60 days — far less flexible than most competitors.

Here’s how the pricing works out:

The company also only has a 30-day money-back guarantee, which matches several other companies in this guide but is significantly shorter than the 100 days offered by ProHealth Longevity. You get free shipping regardless of how you order, as Perpetua.Life offers it on any order over $40.

Our Perpetua.Life testing experience

When you open a bottle, one of the things that immediately stands out about AEON is that its capsules are colored white and blue. Around 98% of the capsules we review are clear, with some light-sensitive ingredients necessitating an opaque capsule to protect them. AEON contains no such ingredients, so the coloring is merely for effect. (For the record, the coloring is naturally derived from cabbage, so there are no artificial colors involved.)

The capsules are also on the large side, at least as large or larger than anything else in this guide. If you have trouble swallowing pills, these may prove difficult, even though it’s only a two-capsule dose. Perpetua.Life has had some recent challenges with its website, with some pages appearing broken during our research. We hope this resolves quickly and is not indicative of the company’s commitment to quality.

Renue by Science offers a targeted array of supplements and other products that all revolve around fighting the aging process. The core of their lineup comprises several NAD+ boosters, including supplemental versions of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), and nicotinamide riboside (NR).

In writing our comprehensive breakdown of the best NAD+ supplements, we found the research supported NMN above the other two nicotinamides for effective NAD+ boosting, with Renue by Science taking our top spot for powdered options and novel delivery mechanisms.23

As the company has evolved, it’s included a wider range of supplements associated with aging, including green tea extract, fisetin, and, of course, resveratrol.

Renue offers many of its products in liposomal formulas that protect against degradation in the stomach or through first-pass hepatic metabolism by allowing therapeutic ingredients direct access to the bloodstream. Studies looking into this phenomenon have shown significant improvements in bioavailability for some notoriously hard-to-absorb ingredients.5

There are four resveratrol products in Renue’s catalog, three of which come in liposomal form. The best of these is the company’s liposomal resveratrol capsules, which are inexpensive and should be as effective or more effective than competing products in most use cases.

Renue by Science also includes 65mg of liposomal resveratrol in its Energizer AM formula. The name alone makes it sounds like something you take in the morning for an immediate energy boost, but its ingredients — the rest of which are green tea, CoQ10, and hesperidin — are better-suited for long-term energy increases.

The one non-liposomal resveratrol-only product is the company’s resveratrol powder. Unfortunately, this powder is not micronized, either, so there’s nothing in it to enhance its bioavailability. That’s why ProHealth Longevity took the win for best resveratrol powder; its powder is micronized to enhance bioavailability.

Renue by Science pricing

Here’s how the pricing works for Renue’s resveratrol products.

That last product was one of our favorites in Renue’s resveratrol lineup, but the company has decided to discontinue it in the near future. At the time of this writing, it’s available for the discounted price of $29.95, but that likely won't last very long.

There are no available subscriptions or any discounts for bulk purchases. By comparison, ProHealth Longevity offers discounts on all of its products for customers who subscribe. It’s not quite enough for the prices to compete with Renue’s cost per dose, but it is a more convenient system in which you don't have to remember when to reorder your next batch.

Renue has a 60-day money-back guarantee that allows you to try any product for up to two months and still get a refund if you’re unsatisfied. This is an improvement over the company’s previous policy, which may have been just as generous but was more vaguely worded. The current policy is clear, but the other companies in our guide still offer longer guarantees.

Our Renue by Science testing experience

Our testing team has tried numerous Renue products over the years, including the liposomal resveratrol products. Though our team doesn’t come close to meeting the participant numbers for a full-fledged study, and we don’t use placebos in our testing, we can report that these products have given testers a greater sense of well-being.

This hasn’t always been easy to define, as the benefits many of these products offer are slowly gained and hard to quantify outside of a clinical testing environment. But the powders and gels you take orally all taste good, offering numerous delivery methods that can increase bioavailability and help ensure you stick with your regimen.

Best budget pick

Vitacost is a company that seems more interested in keeping prices low than anything else. That could make it the perfect fit for anyone especially budget-conscious. You just need to be aware of what you’re giving up in exchange for savings.

Let’s start with the good, though. Vitacost’s 250mg trans-resveratrol is a very titration-friendly dose available for a very low price. That means you could get your hands on a 60-capsule bottle for a lot less than you might spend through a competitor and titrate up in 250mg increments until you find where you might experience some adverse effects. Then you can seek out a potentially safer or more complex formula at the dose you’ve found to be suitable.

The safety issue here primarily comes from the fact that Vitacost doesn’t appear to subject its supplements to any third-party testing. It adheres to current Good Manufacturing Practices and manufactures its supplements in a vetted, reliable manner. But things like purity, potency, and heavy metal contamination are not verified by a third party. We highly recommend that level of transparency and safety for any company with which you form a long-term relationship. All that said, if your goal is to try resveratrol at a low dose for a little less money, this is the best place to start.

Vitacost resveratrol pricing

Vitacost sells its resveratrol as a one-time purchase only, with no option to subscribe. Each bottle contains 60 capsules for $13.99, with another $8.95 in shipping if you don’t order at least $25 worth of goods. Another bottle will get you there, however.

The company’s money-back guarantee is pretty good — longer than comparable guarantees from Perpetua.Life, for example — but its 60-day policy is still shorter than Prohealth Longevity’s impressive 100-day guarantee.

Our Vitacost testing experience

Despite being relatively low-dose capsules, the 250mg doses of resveratrol in this Vitacost product are couched in 500mg of an extract standardized to 50%. So, this isn’t the 98% pure trans-resveratrol of more expensive competitors. That negates any capsule size advantage you might expect to see from a 250mg dose.

On the communications side, Vitacost has more ways to connect than most, with chat, email, and phone support available. In our testing, each method proved timely and informative, though we were given some boilerplate about safety when we inquired more deeply about testing.

Best topical additive

A 2019 review of resveratrol’s potential for cosmetic uses describes anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties, including skin whitening, protection from UVB and UVA rays, and increased firmness and elasticity after 12 weeks of topical application to the face.24 Several resveratrol-based cosmetic products might help you see these benefits, but switching to one of them might throw off the regimen you've perfected for your unique skin.

That’s why we recommend using a resveratrol serum that you can either apply directly to your skin or add to a product of your choice.

The study that showed an increase in facial firmness and elasticity used a 1% resveratrol serum, which is only one-third of the strength you get from The Ordinary’s serum. But what about its 3% ferulic acid? Well, that ingredient is less about its own effects on the skin and more about enhancing the penetration of ingredients next to it. So, by including ferulic acid, the resveratrol in this serum should do a better job penetrating into the skin.25

The Ordinary pricing

One bottle of resveratrol and ferulic acid from The Ordinary costs $10.40 and lasts between three and five months, depending on how you use it. You can mix it into other cosmetic products like moisturizers, or you can place 2-3 drops on your fingertips and rub it in on its own.

The likelihood of an adverse reaction to topical resveratrol is low, and The Ordinary uses propanediol instead of propylene glycol — a known irritant — as its carrier liquid.26 That makes it less likely that the formula will cause any irritation unless you have a specific allergy to one of The Ordinary’s three ingredients.27

Our Ordinary testing experience

Since our testing team consists of several different skin types, and we all use different skin care products at home, there was no way to do a one-to-one comparison between any of us to measure this serum’s efficacy. Instead, we focused on the feel and smell of the serum, as well as how thoroughly it mixed into the cosmetic products we used or absorbed into the skin when applied directly.

We were pleased to find that the serum had no particular smell, and that it mixed well with the various moisturizers we used with it. It also absorbed well on its own, without leaving behind a noticeable residue.

Given the wide potential uses for resveratrol, discussing alternatives could be a 10,000-word article unto itself. For now, we’ll look at some of the things for which resveratrol is most commonly used and compare it with good alternatives for those specific aims.

Food and beverages rich in resveratrol

If you want to stick with resveratrol, but you’re not sure that getting it from a supplemental source makes sense (especially given its low bioavailability), there’s good news. Resveratrol is bountiful in nature, occurring in some of the tastiest food and drinks around.

If you want to increase your resveratrol intake, you can indulge in things like:1

• Red wine
• Grapes
• Peanuts (and, of course, peanut butter)
• Blueberries
• Cocoa and dark chocolate

This is certainly the kind of dietary change most people would be happy to try.