© iStockphotoRed wine's rep as a fountain of youth is facing a challenge.
If you've been counting on your daily dose of merlot to stave off mortality, you might want to consider Plan B.
The links between red wine and longevity aren't nearly as strong as they
once seemed, according to
new research in the journal
Nature. In fact, the research calls into question the whole mechanism used to explain wine's power to extend life.
Sorry, oenophiles.
This all has to do with some natural proteins called sirtuins. (That's pronounced sir-TWO-ins in American English, in case you're reading this out loud at a bar.)
Yeast carry a version. So do worms, mice and people.
About 10 years ago, scientists noticed that an extra helping of sirtuins seemed to help living things live longer. And there was some evidence that a substance in red wine called
resveratrol could crank up sirtuin production.
Then, in 2006, a Harvard researcher named
David Sinclair reported that obese mice that got doses of resveratrol lived longer than fat mice who didn't - about 30 percent longer.