Red Wine or Starvation Diet?

If you pay any attention to the world news outlets, you have heard that drinking red wine has health benefits. Red wine contains various substances - resveratrol, flavonoids (antioxidants) and other polyphenols. All of these substances are known to help keep you healthy. Antioxidants fight cancer by reducing free radicals in the blood stream and resveratrol helps to unclog arteries fight hearts disease and strokes. The latest research shows that red wine will slow bone and heart muscle aging.

Resveratrol is the main chemical in red wine (comes from the grape skins) that excites scientists and drug companies the most. It is rather unique to red wine and grapes and looks like it will lead to many drug possibilities and high profits... Of course, you could just drink two glass of red wine a day or take resveratrol supplements, instead...

What is interesting about resveratrol is that it causes the body to mimic the conditions that occur when there is not enough food to eat. When food is scarce and daily calorie intake drops, the body switches its routine, taking energy reserved for reproductive uses and instead hypes up the cell maintenance. Bottom line here is that the body cells get healthier and live longer with such a tune-up. Of course, you don't want to starve the body for very long, this is a short term phenomenon when we are talking about "starving."

This is actually called a calorie-restricted diet, which has been proven to retard aging in animals.

So if you want to increase you lifespan and fight various diseases (and not starve) - try drinking red wine. You can trick your body to act in the manner of a calorie-restricted diet and still eat your cake, so to speak.

Everything should be done in moderation, of course. Eat wisely and drink red wine moderately. For more information about the health benefits of red wine, check out "To Your Health" - The Health Benefits of Red Wine.

While I recommend limiting your alcohol intake, if you do over do it, I urge you to get a copy of Get Rid of Hangover Forever.