Should I Drink Red Wine? — time.com

Cheers to your health! All five of our experts give red wine a purple-stained smile. At 125 calories for a five-ounce pour, it’s a lighter choice than beer and mixed drinks, says Julia Zumpano, a dietitian at Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Institute. And yes, it’s got more antioxidants, too—including resveratrol, that famous compound billed as the miracle in chocolate and vino. But recent research has given resveratrol the side eye as the reason for wine’s healthy glow. The aptly-named inCHIANTI study, a 16-year-long look at the blood, urine and dietary questionnaires of hundreds of people living in the Italian wine-making region of Chianti, recently found that resveratrol wasn’t associated with disease or lifespan, to the shock and dismay of wine lovers everywhere. But that doesn’t mean red wine does nothing for you—just that resveratrol might not be compound that deserves all the credit. “Many studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption, especially wine, is associated with lower cardiovascular disease and mortality compared with both no alcohol consumption or consumption above moderate,” says Luigi Ferrucci, founder of the inCHIANTI study and now scientific director of the National Institute on Aging. “The mechanism of this association is not clear, and does not appear to be related to resveratrol.”

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