Best Resveratrol Supplement

For most of us, aging comes with numerous unpleasant realities. The vigor of youth fades, and we find ourselves increasingly wrinkled, tired, fragile, and 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 them for ourselves. We’ll share our findings here, so you can decide if resveratrol is right for you.

If you’re pressed for time, here’s a quick breakdown 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 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.

While there are numerous caveats regarding resveratrol’s potential efficacy (which we’ll get into in more depth below), it’s still the most important thing to consider, and it bore the most weight in our comparisons. Cost came after that, as the prices of these supplements can vary widely. Safety was a little less of a concern considering the low occurrence of adverse reactions in resveratrol studies, but certain things still influence that and are worth exploring. Finally, we’ll discuss convenience, which involves everything from the design of a company’s website to the method of delivery (capsules, powder, etc.).

Let’s examine these criteria more closely.

Effectiveness

Winner: Renue by Science LIPO Trans-Resveratrol

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 with 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 continuously 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.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 2000% increase in bioavailability in mice.5

This increase is why we consider Renue by Science’s LIPO Trans-Resveratrol to be the option with the highest degree of potential effectiveness. ProHealth Longevity’s resveratrol powder is micronized, however, which can’t be said of the powdered resveratrol Renue offers. So, if you’re determined to make your resveratrol into a drink, that would be the better choice.

Cost

Winner: Renue by Science LIPO Trans-Resveratrol

It’s not always the case that our best overall pick also offers the best price, but Renue by Science’s LIPO Trans-Resveratrol is certainly an exception.

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

The resveratrol and ferulic acid serum from The Ordinary technically has a lower cost per dose than Renue’s capsules, 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.

With that distinction in mind, it’s clear that Renue’s liposomal resveratrol capsules are the best deal by dose.

Safety

Winner: Renue by Science LIPO Trans-Resveratrol

There has been bountiful evidence of resveratrol’s safety, with over 20,000 research papers written on the polyphenol by 2019 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 LIPO Trans-Resveratrol from Renue by Science relies on a relatively low 125mg dose and an enhanced bioavailability that should make it act like a higher dose with fewer potential side effects. This makes it a relatively easy pick for safety.

Convenience

Winner: Renue by Science NMN + Resveratrol LIPO Gel

Provided you’re also interested in the potential for 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 water or another beverage to reap its benefits. And our testers like the taste as well, which they described as a mix between Sweet Tarts candy and Day-Quil.

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. Even when they don’t offer savings, we always prefer subscription systems, as they make it so you don’t have to remember to order your next shipment. With long-term supplements like resveratrol or 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 lifespan extension to anti-inflammation. You can get a fair amount of it from foods that are rich in it, but supplementation may provide a significant boost, depending on dose and form.

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 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. 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 from resveratrol in numerous 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, there have been no home runs in the research that have revealed an ideal dose and form to make a significant difference for one disease or another, but given its 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 with 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 with any of the issues listed above, you may want to avoid resveratrol, if only to save you the cost of the supplement. For people with those issues or a family history thereof, it may be worth it to incorporate resveratrol into a regimen of supplements, good food, and exercise. But the inconclusive nature of much of the research would make resveratrol a less enticing option for otherwise healthy individuals.

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

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. This 2012 study 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 success for a time with other therapies, but had since seen a recurrence of their disease. SRT501 at 5g was associated with significant adverse effects including:9

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

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

Now, these were people with significant illness being given a version of resveratrol, research into which 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 below.

Best overall, best capsule, and best NAD+ booster with resveratrol

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.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 this 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 of which sounds like it might be 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.

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

That last product was one of our favorites from 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 available 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 your money back 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 its 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 powder

Like Renue by Science, ProHealth Longevity has a supplement lineup that’s designed to fight the aging process. It has a lot more options than Renue at this time, with over 100 items in its catalog, most of which are single-ingredient capsules or powders. Renue’s liposomal products likely offer better bioavailability than many of the supplements on ProHealth’s website, with several delivery mechanisms ranging from nasal sprays to sublingual gels. To its credit, some of ProHealth’s products contain micronized powders, which are easier to absorb than standard 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 ensures great absorption and improved 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.

The company’s recommended resveratrol dose 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.

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 significantly.

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

The best price you’ll get here is with ProHealth’s steep 30% subscription discount on a 3-pack, which brings the cost per dose down to $0.67. That’s still $0.20 more per dose than the liposomal capsules from Renue by Science.

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

As you can see, two highest quantities of resveratrol powder aren’t eligible for the 30% subscription discount, though you can still subscribe so you don’t have to remember to reorder (though the delivery schedule for these large quantities is wild, with options at 500 and 1,000 days for the 500g and 1,000 or 2,000 days for the 1,000g). That disparity in discounts makes the subscriptions to the 100g or 250g 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

Considering the fact that there are no additional ingredients in ProHealth Longecity’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 topical additive

There are numerous moisturizers and other cosmetic products that contain resveratrol, but switching to one of those might throw off a regimen that you’ve spent time and money perfecting over the years for your unique skin.

That’s why we recommend using a resveratrol serum that you can either apply directly to your skin or add into a product of your choice to enhance its potential to improve your skin’s health and appearance. 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

The study that showed an increase in facial firmness and elasticity used a 1% resveratrol serum, which is only a third of the strength you get from The Ordinary’s serum. But what about that 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

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 its three ingredients.27

Our Ordinary testing experience

Since our testing team consists of several different skin types, and we all use different skincare products at home, there was no way to do a one-to-one comparison between any of us to measure this serum’s efficacy. So, 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 apparent smell, and that it mixed well with the various moisturizers we used with it. It also absorbed well on its own, without leaving a noticeable residue behind.

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 drink 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.