Red Wine Benefits

Contrary to popular opinion and wishful thinking, you may not find the fountain of youth in a bottle of red wine, but a key compound in the wine could make old age a little easier to tolerate.

For years, scientists have touted the “aging-prevention” compound resveratrol, found in red wine and grapes. Now a University of Florida review of human clinical research on resveratrol shows there haven’t been enough human studies to prove the compound’s really beneficial. Researchers say it almost certainly won’t prevent old age, but it does have potential to improve health and help prevent disease.

Heather Hausenblas/UF exercise researcher: “The main potential reason is that resveratrol is a super-powered anti-oxidant and it seems to kind of attack those free radicals, and free radicals are present in most diseases and aging.”

In fact, free radicals get a lot of the blame for speeding up cell death and making people more susceptible to disease as they get older.

Heather Hausenblas/UF exercise researcher: “If we’re taking a look at where are you going to get it most in your diet, it’s found in the largest quantities in red wine. You can also find it in other things; obviously it’s going to come from the grapes because that’s from what red wine or any type of wine is made.”

So a glass of red wine might do you some good, but there’s not much scientific proof for humans just yet.