From the New York Times yesterday:

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

One of the "longevity drugs" they're talking about is a pill containing a highly concentrated form of resveratrol, a chemical found in the skin of red grapes that may have antioxidant, antiviral, and cancer-fighting properties.

The latest thinking is that it also slows down the aging process by helping the body shift into a tissue-preserving mode.

Whenever these "resveratrol is magic!" stories pop up, the fine print usually shows that you'd have to drink an entire vineyard's worth of red wine to get the magical effects. But this one is much more reasonable:

a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective

Since a bottle of wine is 25 fluid ounces, you'd have to drink four-fifths of a bottle every day. In other words, you'd merely have to be a borderline alcoholic to get the life-extending benefit. Progress!

I'm reminded of something Alan Aragon said in his presentation at the JP Fitness Summit in Little Rock last weekend: Whole foods almost inevitably turn out to be more beneficial than concentrated doses of their component parts.

Is red wine a "whole food"? Kind of, I guess. Still, I think it's accurate to say that interest in the potential health-promoting properties of resveratrol started with the observation that people who drink red wine have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Maybe, when this line of research plays out, we'll be back where we started: a glass or two of red wine a day is correlated with a longer, healthier life ... for reasons that can't really be explained by any single component of the wine itself.

Thursday blog meat:

* My wife and I have always prided ourselves on the fact our kids had less fruit juice growing up than their peers. I don't know if they ate more whole fruit, but the only times they got juice were birthday parties and post-soccer-game snacks. One goal was weight control -- we didn't want them to get all those excess calories. Now comes a report suggesting that juice isn't linked to weight gain in kids. I think I understand why that wouldn't be the case in the data used, but I'd be shocked if it's not a problem for young children whose parents give them much more than the average amount reported in this study.

* The good news: white and black teenagers today engage in fewer risky sexual behaviors than their predecessors did 16 years ago. The bad news: Hispanic high schoolers are more likely than white or black kids to have sexual intercourse with multiple partners.