BREAKING: resveratrol extends life and promises free gluttony
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Watch out wine lovers, we’re going to be getting some competition. Pills.
We’ve known for a long time about the health benefits of red wine. In fact, hardly a week goes by without some new health news.
Now researchers at Harvard and the National Institutes of Aging have found that reserveratrol, found in red wine, can in “very large doses” slow down aging. Moreover, it can offset many of the negative effects of a high fat diet including the onset of diabetes. Lab mice with the equivalent amount of resveratrol as found in 10 - 20 bottles a day for human consumption, fed the same diet as others fared much better in agility tests and health later in life.
“They had all the pleasures of gluttony but paid none of the price,” as this story in today’s NYT summarized.
Wow, fountain of youth. Free gluttony. This stuff should be illegal! (oh wait, it is for people under 21) So give up the calorie restricted ascetism. And don’t go for the pills, we know there’s only one way: cabernet for all!
Read the excellent story in the Times summarizing the study from today’s journal Nature by David Sinclair and Richard Hodes.
tags: wine | fountain of youth | gluttony
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On November 1st, 2006 at 8:31 pm ,Josh wrote:
Ahem.
Make that: “Pinot for all!”
Much better
In all seriousness, very cool news. Thanks for the pointer.
On November 1st, 2006 at 11:25 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Josh,
Yes, pinot. I agree. But we’ll send all the resveratrol junkies to the cab since there’s so little pinot to go round.
On November 2nd, 2006 at 6:07 am ,jimkay wrote:
Resveratol works like as an antifungal in grapes and is therefore present in higher amounts in wines from cool climates. The highest levels are in Muscadines - the grape-like fruit that grows here in the South. A couple of years aago I was talking with the winemaker at Duplin Cellars in NC and he commented that it was getting harder to buy enough muscadines for his winery because the pharmaceutical companies were getting them all. Of course the trouble with muscadines is the taste. I remeber a comment in an article from the LA Times writer Dan Berger. He liken the bouquet of muscadine wine to “rotting fruit cake.”
On November 2nd, 2006 at 3:41 pm ,winehiker wrote:
Hmmmm… maybe THAT’s why there’s so little Pinot around!
(Dr. Vino, thanks for hosting such a cool online climate!)
On May 2nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm ,Dr Vino’s wine blog » Blog Archive » Resveratrol now promises cardiovascular sloth wrote:
[...] researchers promised what the New York Times story called “guilt-free gluttony” through resveratrol, a component found in red [...]
On January 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm ,Dr Vino’s wine blog » 2008 » January » 10 wrote:
[...] Further, since about 1991 when “60 Minutes” popularized the notion of the “French paradox,” there have been many studies underscoring the health benefits of wine, particularly the role of tannins. Heck, resveratrol extends life and promises fat-free gluttony! [...]