Red, red wine

Saturday, June 7, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

People can always use a little good news, and medical researchers are obliging this week with a report that says they are closer to creating a medicine that mimics the life-extending properties of red wine.

The New York Times reports that Sirtris, a small pharmaceutical company recently acquired by Glaxo-

SmithKline, is experimenting with lab-created versions of resveratrol, a tissue-maintaining substance found in the skin of red grapes and, therefore, in some red wines.

Scientists have been studying resveratrol for at least two decades in hope of finding ways to use it to increase longevity. Some scientists take a capsule form of resveratrol, but other researchers still deem it too risky because information on the chemical’s safety and efficacy is incomplete.

So far researchers have been successful in extending the lives of laboratory mice by feeding them large amounts of resveratrol.

But hold onto those corkscrews. In order to ingest the same relative amount of resveratrol that benefited lab mice, a human would have to drink 100 bottles of red wine a day.

One study, by Wisconsin scientists, suggests that resveratrol coupled with other antioxidants in red wine could lower an effective dose to four glasses of wine a day, the Times reports. Other studies have been inconclusive about how much, or how little, resveratrol would be effective in humans.

David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School physician and a co-founder of Sirtris, told the Times, “the question of how resveratrol is working is an ongoing debate, and it will take more studies to get the answer.”

Undoubtedly, laboratory mice couldn’t care less about the prospect of continued red wine research. But we’re betting that human participants would be eager to oblige — in the name of science, of course.