wine and health

Did you remember to have a glass of wine last night? If not, it may be because you didn't have a glass of wine to help you remember. The association of wine consumption and better memory has long been suspected, especially as it relates to cognitive decline with advancing age. Studies consistently find a correlation between long term moderate wine consumption and better mental function in older populations, but clinical studies – where one group is prospectively compared to another – are still hard to come by. One such study comes from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Berlin. They compared 23 older adults given resveratrol for 26 weeks to an equal number given placebo. Before and after the study period, subjects underwent memory tasks and neuroimaging to assess volume and functional neural connectivity of the hippocampus, a key region implicated in memory. The resveratrol group had improvements in memory retention and increased neural connectiv...