Red Wine's Magical Properties Continue to Amaze and Delight

Another day, another fabulous study revealing the magical, mystical properties of red wine. This time, we learn that resveratrol, that extra special stuff that comes from the skin of red grapes and is hence found in red wine, can neutralize the toxic effects of proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease.

"We've shown how resveratrol has very interesting selectivity to target and neutralize a select set of toxic peptide isoforms," said Professor Peter Tessier, who led the research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "Because resveratrol picks out the clumps of peptides that are bad and leaves alone the ones that are benign, it helps us to think about the structural differences between the peptide isoforms."

Bad peptides are linked to Alzheimer's disease; good ones are not.

Things get a little complicated after that -- questions about crossing the blood-brain barrier and whatnot -- but suffice it to say, resveratrol (and therefore red wine) rocks. Which we knew anyway, but it's always nice to hear again.