Fountain of youth? Red wine gives up secrets

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A compound in red wine may ward off a variety of medical conditions related to aging, providing heart benefits, stronger bones and preventing eye cataracts, researchers said on Thursday.

The study, involving mice fed a diet supplemented with resveratrol starting in their equivalent of middle age, is the latest to raise hope that the compound or drugs based on it may improve the health of people.

Most of mice given resveratrol did not live longer than other mice but were far more healthy in several important measures, according to the study published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

"The good news is we can increase health. I think that's more important than increasing life span," David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School, who led the study along with Rafael de Cabo of the U.S. government's National Institute on Aging, said in a telephone interview.

The mice in the study that were fed a high-calorie diet supplemented with resveratrol outlived those getting a high-calorie diet without the compound, the researchers said.

"Resveratrol wiped out the negative effect of the high fat," de Cabo said in a telephone interview.

Resveratrol, found in abundance in grapes and in red wine, has drawn a lot of interest from scientists and some companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, which this year paid $720 million to buy Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc, a company developing drugs that mimic the effects of resveratrol.

Sirtris scientists were involved in the study. Sinclair helped found Sirtris and is co-chairman of its scientific advisory board.