L’Chaim
The latest news from Harvard Medical School appears to confirm something that rabbis and French chefs have been saying for centuries: Red wine is good for you.
According to a study by Harvard scientists, announced this week in the online journal Nature, red wine contains a chemical that mimics the life-extending qualities of a low-calorie diet. So far they have only tested it on yeast and a limited sample of flies and worms, but results are encouraging. Yeast cells live as much as 80% longer when fed a dose of the compound known as resveratrol. Some of the researchers are so impressed that they’ve taken to drinking a glass of red wine a day, even before they finish a current round of tests on monkeys.
The tests are based on the discovery in 1991 that reducing daily calorie intake triggers a gene — at least in mice — that’s designed to defend the body against starvation. A moderate caloric reduction, without a cutback in essential nutrients, seems to make mice live as much as 30% longer. Scientists have been searching ever since for a chemical that would stimulate the starvation gene without reducing calories. They think they’ve found it in red wine. Some of the scientists involved suspect the chemical explains why France, with its high rate of wine consumption, has a relatively long life expectancy despite its high-fat diet.
The approach of the Jewish High Holy Day season, with its concentrated series of festive toasts, libations and schmaltz-soaked meals, provides an obvious opportunity to test the findings on a willing human public.
Those who haven’t made a habit in the past of reciting Kiddush throughout the holiday season, which begins with Rosh Hashana on September 26 and ends three weeks later with Simchat Torah, are invited to take the plunge next month — in the interests of science, of course. Anyone who can still find the keyboard afterward is invited to share results with the Forward.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
