Drink red wine to stay slim

If you need yet another reason to justify drinking yet another glass of red wine, here it is.

A research carried out by a team of researchers at the Purdue University, Indiana, USA, has unveiled that benefits derived from drinking red wine outshine the harms that it causes.

The researchers said that red wine contains such a component that eventually helps the drinker to lose weight.

The compound, called piceatannol, is also believed to help prevent heart disease and cancer — not unlike resveratrol, the previously discovered compound in red wine that’s praised for its heart-healthy benefits.

Piceatannol blocks insulin’s ability to activate genes that carry out further stages of fat cell formation.

The agent found in wine is also thought to protect the body from heart and neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, according to the study.

“In the presence of piceatannol you can see delay or complete inhibition of young fat cells,” the Daily Mail quoted lead researcher Dr Kee-Hong Kim as saying.

“Piceatannol alters the timing of gene expressions, gene functions and insulin action during adipogenesis – the process in which young fat cells become mature fat cells,” Dr Kim explained.

The compound is similar in structure to resveratrol – a supplement sold in the UK last year to combat disease – and is also found in grapes, blueberries and passion fruit.

Dr Kim, assistant professor of food science at the university, said: “We are now testing our idea using animal model obesity to see if it has the same benefical functions.”

“We need to work on improving the stability and solubility of piceatannol to create a biological effect,” he added.

And there’s no need to feel excluded if you’re not a wine drinker, as this very same compound is also found in passion fruit, blueberries and, of course, grapes.