Rejoice, all of you who love your merlot, Beaujolais, zinfandel and cabernet. This holiday season comes wrapped in good scientific news about your favorite red wines.
Resveratrol, a natural substance contained in these lovely varietals, has been shown to boost endurance in lab mice and reverse the effects of obesity.
Could there be a better holiday gift? Of course, those who actually continue reading to the bottom of the detailed accounts of the research quickly learn that you’d have to drink hundreds of glasses a day to get enough resveratrol – found in the skin of red grapes – to make a difference.
Such sniggling detail is necessary, more study is prudent, and ultimately moderation should prevail, but researchers believe they’re on to something that could be delivered someday in your daily vitamin pill.
More power to them. We wish them the best in their continued research. So far, however, their discoveries should buoy the spirit of any wine aficionado.
Laboratory mice can typically run 1 kilometer on a treadmill before collapsing from exhaustion. But those given resveratrol were able to run twice as far. Furthermore, the mice had a reduced heart rate and the looks of a trained athlete without the workout.
These revelations come from an article published online by researchers from the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. (Of course, it would be the French who figure this out). That came in close proximity to news from Harvard researchers who reported that high doses of resveratrol extended the lives of chubby mice eating a high-fat diet and kept them as healthy as mice eating normal rodent fare.
The Harvard study found the mice getting resveratrol burned calories at an impressive rate and suffered fewer adverse effects on their livers and hearts.
What all of this means to humans, at this point, is unclear. These are mice, after all. And while supplement distributors have already rushed to market with pills to meet demand caused by this news, the experts are counseling caution. Many researchers are warning people to not try home remedies until further research irons out such things as side effects and appropriate doses.
But for the time being, if you are hoisting a glass or two around the holidays, do so with the benefit of research behind you. Indeed, we suggest a toast – to science.
