We all know that red wine is good for you, but is there one ingredient that makes all the difference

This article looks at some of the discussion about the alleged "magic bullet" called resveratrol. Maybe we could just take a pill to get the health benefits of red wine without actually having to drink it.

Now wouldn't that be a wonderful world to live in

What is resveratrol

The American Heritage Dictionary defines resveratrol as There is an important three letter word in that definition... may. "may" is a small word but it has significant implications.

This compound became the focus of attention a couple of decades ago when it was found to have effects on the physiology of many animal species, including humans. It was thought to be the explanation of the 'French Paradox' that heart disease is lower in France than in comparable countries despite a diet rich in fats.

Elements of the research about resveratrol were reported on in the general media and the compound gained cult status. There is now a large industry producing resveratrol pills, tablets and food supplements containing resveratrol, but there are doubts about their value. New research suggests that it compounds other than resveratrol may be responsible for the health benefits.

What are its supposed benefits

It has been noted that people in some regions have better health and longer lives even though their diet is rich in fat. The so called medium diet around the world has been studied to try to find out just what is good for you. Red wine drinking is one factor that is closely associated with this effect. Something in red wine provides protection against heart disease, diabetes, various cancers and some forms of dementia. Many plant based foods contain compounds called polyphenols. These include tannins and the colouring and flavouring compounds found in wine, and many other foods. Resveratrol is just one of these. Many polyphenols have beneficial effects on human health, but sorting out just which ones are the most effective is just being sorted out.

Why the confusion about resveratrol

It seems resveratrol does have some of the protective properties attributed to it, but it seems other polyphenols, particularly ologomeric procyanadins (OPC) give the most benefit. Both resveratrol and OPCs are present in red wine to varying degrees, but the OPCs seem to be the good guys that pack the punch. Cardiovascular and diabetes researcher Roger Corder in his book on the says "Red wine is a cocktail of polyphenols" Sorting out just which of the polyphenols are good for you has lead to the identification of oligomeric procyanidins as being identified as the most beneficial.

Which wines are really good for you

Buy this print from

The good molecules are in the skins of the grapes, especially red wine grapes. When red wines are made the juice is kept in contact with the skins for days to weeks and thus the OPCs get extracted into the wine. The alcohol helps the compounds dissolve into the wine.

Research by the William Harvey Institute on London has shown that some grape varieties seem better than others.

Tannat seems to be the top of the pile, but there are others, including Malbec. Tannat is the heart and soul wines made in the Madiran Region of South West France, and Tannat is the red variety of choice in Uruguay. Quite a few .

Malbec is making a comeback in Australia. Once used mainly as a blending variety, some Australian wineries are now using it to make varietal wines. Amazon The Wine Diet is not your usual wine book. It contains ten chapters (150 pages) of discussion about diet, wine and health and just two chapters (80 pages) of menus and recipes. The arguments are cogent and persuasive, a nice blend of logic, common sense and anecdote.

(function() { var d = document, l =ation, e = encodeURIComponent, u =f), t =le); // implied global socializeIt = function(where) { var url; if (where == 'Buzz') { url =oo.com/submitsubmitUrl='+ u +'&t=' + t; } else if (where ==o.us') { url =o.us/postv=4&noui&jump=close&url=' + u + '&title=' + t; } else if (where == 'Facebook') { url =ebook.com/share.phpu='+ u +'&t=' + t; } else if (where == 'Google') { url =gle.com/ig/addemoduleurl=www.google.com/ig/modules/bookmarks.xml&hl=en/u='+ u +'&t=' + t; } else if (where == 'Myspace') { url =pace.com/Modules/PostTo/Pages/u='+ u +'&t=' + t; } else if (where == 'StumbleUpon') { url =mbleupon.com/submiturl=' + u + '&title=' + t; } else if (where == 'Technorati') { url =/faves/add=' + u; } else { throw new Error ('unknown social site "' + where + '"'); } n(url, 'sharer', 'toolbar=0,status=0,width=700,height=500,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes'); return false; }; var sites = ['Google', 'Buzz', 'Facebook', 'Myspace', 'StumbleUpon', 'Technorati',o.us']; // Note that the number of elements and order of the array of images must match that of the sites array above. var imgURLs = new Array(); var iLen =gth; var i; for(i = 0; i < iLen; i++) { imgURLs[i] =odiversity.com/objects/'; } //Google imgURLs[0] +='; //Yahoo Buzz imgURLs[1]'; //Facebook imgURLs[2] +='; //Myspace imgURLs[3] +='; //StumbleUpon Image imgURLs[4] +='; //Technorati Image imgURLs[5] +='; //Delicious Image imgURLs[6] +='; teln('Share this page: '); for (i=0; i