"grape skin" news and stories

At Harvard Medical School, an experiment involving red wine has yielded some very interesting results. The study found that the effects of a poor, high-calories diet were offset by a chemical that is naturally found in red wine, resveratrol, which comes from the skin of grapes. On top of that, it seemed to help extend the lifespan in general.

The study was only conducted on mice, not people. The mice were fed a diet in which 60% of the calories came from fat. All the mice gained weight, but the ones that were also given a "a large daily dose of resveratrol" had " all the pleasures of gluttony but paid none of the price" and lived just as well, physically and mentally, as the mice on healthy diets did.

The only problem is not that the study was conducted on mice, but the dose of resveratrol that they were given. One litre of red wine contains 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol. "A 150-pound person would need to drink from 1,500 to 3,000 bottles of red wine a day" to get the same dose as the mice, 24-mg per kg of body weight. Smaller amounts would have a positive, but correspondingly weaker, effect, but since the results are no confirmed on humans yet, limiting yourself to an extra glass of wine is probably still a better idea than having an extra bottle.

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