Red, Red Wine! For Fat, Fat Mice!

AP Photo/National Institutes of Health, Doug Hansen

More good news for merlot-swilling mice: ingesting huge amounts of resveratrol counteracts diseases associated with obesity. Earlier, I had written about merlot-swilling mice having fewer strokes, and wondered how long the mice had to take resveratrol to avoid stroke damage. Here, we see that large doses of the extract protect organs from the damage caused by high cholesterol, lowered the risk of developing diabetes, and avoided liver damage associated with obesity. However, the lead researcher, David Sinclair, does caution:

Sinclair's mice took such high doses of resveratrol that it would be the equivalent of an adult drinking 100 bottles of wine daily.

So, uh, don't drink the red wine yet, to get your daily dose of resveratrol. The research looks so promising, that the National Institute on Aging is looking to repeat the experiment in rhesus monkeys. Also, you can't go wrong with pictures of fat, healthy mice looking all cute.