Most of wine’s constituents are water and alcohol, of course, but the liquid contains a huge array of natural chemicals derived from grapes, most notably a group of health-promoting antioxidants called polyphenols.
Resveratrol
From early on, the polyphenol that stood out from the crowd was a compound called resveratrol (RSV)—possibly because red wine contains quite a lot of it, and white wine contains almost none. The first RSV study was done in 1978. By 2023, the number stood at over 17,000.
According to a 2020 paper summarizing the findings, “Resveratrol has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, glucose and lipid regulatory, neuroprotective, and cardiovascular protective effects. It can protect against chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, liver disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.”1
However, all this is possibly hype. Yes,…
