ABSTRACT
The history of resveratrol, the active ingredient in red grapes, peanuts, berries, and several other food plants, indirectly dates back to the Ayurveda, the ancient Indian treatise on the science of longevity. Although once considered a disadvantage, resveratrol’s ability to modulate multiple cellular targets makes it suitable for the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases. The skin of resveratrol-treated animals showed no apparent dermal toxicity such as erythema, scaling, crusting, lichenification, or excoriation. Most chemotherapeutic agents are highly toxic not only to tumor cells but also to normal cells. Additionally, tumors eventually develop resistance to chemotherapeutic agents. Using high-performance liquid chromatography analysis, it has been shown that the main components of darakchasava are the polyphenols resveratrol and pterostilbene, which account for its numerous medicinal properties. Microarray analysis has shown that resveratrol differentially modulates the expression of many genes in multiple cell-signaling pathways.
