Is Red Wine the Secret to a Long Life?

Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging report that a natural substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol, offsets the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan.

If men are like mice, the results imply that very large daily doses of resveratrol could offset the unhealthy, high-calorie diet thought to underlie the rising toll of obesity. Resveratrol is found in the skin of grapes and in red wine and is thought to partially explain the French paradox, the puzzling fact that people in France tend to enjoy a high-fat diet yet suffer less heart disease than Americans. The mice were fed a hefty dose of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-pound person would need to drink from 1,500 to 3,000 bottles of red wine a day for an equivalent dose. Obviously, that's not a healthy option. Researchers caution individuals to wait for the results of safety testing since substances that are safe and beneficial in small doses may prove to be harmful when taken in high doses.