If you aren’t drinking red wine right now, stop reading and fill up a glass. Take a sip. Congratulations!! Recent studies show that if you drink red wine you will live longer, be healthier and look thinner.

Wow. This 20-year study, performed by Dr. Leonard Guarente of M.I.T., and recently confirmed by Dr. Richard Weindruch of the University of Wisconsin – Madison (Go Packers), shows that Resveratrol, a chemical compound in red wine, peanuts and green tea, can do some pretty fantastic stuff for humans.

Sure… this isn’t the first study to find fantastic health benefits in wine. And I am sure that next week, I will read an article about the grievous dangers of alcohol abuse. This has been an ongoing debate for decades. I’m no scientist, but I see it this way: French people eat lots of butter and drink red wine. They are thin and healthy. People from Wisconsin eat lots of butter and drink beer. They are not. These scientists might be on to something.

But before you fill up a glass, make sure that it’s red wine. Resveratrol comes from the skins of grapes, so you will find it in higher concentrations in red wine which is fermented with the skins.

Eat, drink and be merry (and thin and healthy and old). You’re welcome.