Resveratrol

A glass of wine is commonly thought to be good for our health. Valerio Esposito finds out why

- Valerio Esposito

For centuries, humans have fantasised about the so-called elixir of life. As it turns out, a simple trip to the grocery store may quench your thirst for youth: and could red wine be the answer?

According to David Sinclair, a professor in genetics and co-director of the Paul F Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School in the US, it’s a possibility. “A glass of wine a day provides polyphenols that appear to be beneficial to health,” he says. “There is a cocktail of molecules, including resveratrol, that have shown antiageing effects in lab studies.”

Since the early 2000s, Dr Sinclair has been studying the anti-ageing effects of resveratrol, a special type of polyphenol antioxidant much-touted for its purported benefits to health. It is found in pine trees, peanuts, berries, and especially the skin and seeds of grapes, which determines its significant content in red wine.

The presence of resveratrol in wine has often been used to explain the so-called ‘French Paradox’, which describes the low incidence of coronary diseases in France, despite high consumption of saturated fats and red wine.

But Dr Randolph Arroo, head of research at Leicester School of Pharmacy, believes that cause and effect is unclear. “There are many theories on resveratrol,” he says. “It is true that in France and Mediterranean countries, people regularly drink red wine and have a lower chance of heart attack. But it’s very hard to say if that’s a consequence of their wine intake.”