Red wine’s resveratrol not linked to healthier life

Even though red wine is a good source of resveratrol, the typical quantity of the chemical consumed in a Western diet is not associated with improvements in health, according to a new study.

Mick Stephenson mixpix/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

By Ashley Yeager

May 13, 2014 at 4:12 pm

Sipping red wine or eating chocolate or grapes to take in extra resveratrol may not help you live a longer, healthier life. While the chemical has been shown to lengthen the life span of yeast and improve health in lab animals, scientists did not find a link between resveratrol metabolites in people’s urine and inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer or longevity. The result suggests that the amount of resveratrol consumed with a Western diet does not have a substantial influence on human health or risk of death, the team reports May 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine.