Drinking a glass of wine on daily basis will do you no harm. Oppositely, it will protect you against many of the health ravages linked to the process of growing old, at least that is what researchers led by Rafael de Cabo, unit chief of the laboratory of experimental gerontology at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, along with David A. Sinclair, of Harvard Medical School suggest.

How is that possible? Well, according to their findings, a compound in red wine named resveratrol seems to have health benefits, which may improve the quality of life. It’s true that their experiment was done in mice, but it’s an important step forward and a reason to believe that the possibility of improving our life is closer than we think.

The researchers discovered that mice fed with a diet supplemented with resveratrol by the time they were 12 moths old (roughly the same as 35 years in a person) did not live longer than other mice but were far healthier in several important measures.

To be more specific, resveratrol (which is also found in the crust of peanuts and walnuts, in grapes, blueberries, peanut butter, pistachios and other foods) seemed to ward off the effects of age on heart, bones, eyes and muscle of mice, improving conditions that make the elderly very frail like cataracts, osteoporosis and poor motor coordination.

However, the researchers said it would be too early for people to start taking resveratrol in order to improve health, as the compound might interact with other drugs. They also stressed that their study has “"no immediate and direct application to people, whose health is influenced by a variety of factors beyond those which may be represented in the animal models.”

The study was published in the July 3 online edition of Cell Metabolism.