Potential anti-aging effects of grape seed procyanidins on Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans was used as a lifespan model to evaluate the anti-aging potential of grape seed procyanidins (GSP) . The tolerance of C. elegans and paraquat-induced oxidization in NGM medium containing GSP (100, 200, 300μg/mL, respectively) were tested. Compared with the controls, feeding of 200μg·mL-1GSP to C. elegans improved significantly the life span of the nematodes. The mean lifespan of C. elegans was lengthened by 25.7% (p <0.01) , and its maximum lifespan increased by 24.0% (p <0.01) . In addition, the nematodes showed a good movement ability, and their average daily number of peaks per minute were prolonged significantly by 13.2% (p<0.05) . Compared to the controls, feeding nematodes of 200μg/mL GSP to C. elegans caused the nematode's fecundity to postpone 1 day, although their total mean fecundity and hatchability had no significant differences from those of the controls. In the presence of 20μg/mL GSP, the mean survival time of C. elegans was lifted by 27.3% for thermo-tolerance (p<0.01) and 11.2% (p<0.05) for paraquat-induced oxidization, respectively. Apparently, consumption of grape seed procyanidins prolonged the average lifespan of the nematodes mainly because C. elegans improved its tolerance towards stress conditions which caused aging.