A follow-up on resveratrol, the great ingredient in red wine

In addition to enhancing lifespan (even when one is on a high-calorie diet), it has now been shown to increase endurance.

An ordinary laboratory mouse will run one kilometer on a treadmill before collapsing from exhaustion. But mice given resveratrol, a minor component of red wine and other foods, run twice as far. They also have energy-charged muscles and a reduced heart rate, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell by Johan Auwerx and colleagues ...

Indications are that the same effect should work for humans too. Before you start stocking up on red wine, read the fine print (which appears deep in the report):

... Though resveratrol has long been known to be an ingredient of red wine and other foods, its presence there is minuscule compared with the doses used in experiments.

Dr. Sinclair dosed his mice daily with 22 milligrams of resveratrol per kilogram of weight, and Dr. Auwerx used up to 400 milligrams. No one can drink enough red wine to obtain such doses.