Of Mice and Men (and Wine)

By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Nov 17, 2006 7:02PM

As if you needed another reason to break out the Cabernet tonight: A study being released in the journal Cell found that mice who were given resveratrol, a component of red wine and peanuts, had more energy and worked more efficiently than the control group of mice. Resveratrol was also recently shown to help mice battle obesity.

Though this is good news for those of us who enjoy a nice bottle of bourdeaux in addition to a nice long run, scientists caution that that resveratrol's effects on humans are unknown. The mice were given (as it always seems to be in these kinds of cases), incredibly large doses. "Humans would have to take hundreds of resveratrol pills sold in health food stores or drink hundreds of glasses of wine a day to get equivalent levels of the substance tested on the mice, neither of which would be safe." We were down when we thought drinking a couple of glasses would do the trick, but hundreds? Ain't gonna happen.

One of the more interesting points raised in the article is that resveratrol may be the reason why the French have fewer heart attacks.

Articles like this seem to come out pretty frequently, and it can be difficult to keep track of it all (see: Beef Bad for Boobs). Red wine has some other health benefits as well. It is good for your heart, can help reduce tumor size and may even be beneficial for Alzheimer's patients.