Cheers!

Recent research out of Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging suggests that an ingredient found in red wine, resveratrol, may reduce the incidence of the health-related consequences typically associated with obesity. When obese mice were administered heavy doses of resveratrol, their fat-related deaths dropped by 31%.

As for the resveratrol-enhanced mice? “‘They’re chubby, but inside they look great,’” says study co-author David Sinclair of Harvard in a Metro report. Sinclair’s co-author, Rafael de Cabo, with the National Institutes on Aging, states in a Harvard Medical School News Release, “‘After six months, resveratrol essentially prevented most of the negative effects of the high calorie diet in mice.’”

Preliminary results indicate that resveratrol may be associated with lower incidences of diabetes, heart disease, and liver dysfunction, even in obese populations, when the prevalence of these diseases, historically, has been thought to be directly related to patients’ weight. Again, we’re confronted with data suggesting that it’s impossible to posit a one-to-one correlation between weight and health, that a multitude of factors (e.g., physical fitness, genetics, even mass amounts of red wine consumption) may moderate this relationship.