A mountain of scientific evidence is building up to support the contention that two glasses of red wine a day have beneficial health results. From the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease to the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, from preventing food poisining, dysentery and so-called "traveler's diarrhea" to reduction in human mortality rates, the benefits of red wine consumption are piling up. Indeed, more than 100 scientific reports have been published since 1991 providing strong evidence that moderate wine consumption can be part of a healthy lifestyle.

Possibly the most notable of these studies, if only because it was the focus of two separate CBS 60 Minutes segments, is the so-called "French Paradox." The French eat 30% more fat than Americans but suffer 40% fewer heart attacks. The evidence that the French consumption of red wine with their meals countermands the fattier diet seems compelling in light of subsequent research. The largest study, the Copenhagen City Heart Study, which monitored 13,000 men and women aged 30 to 70 between 1976 and 1988, found compelling evidence of the connection between moderate wine consumption and a sharp reduction in human mortality rates. This study found that daily wine consumers have literally half the risk of dying at any given age when compared to those who never drink wine.

Both alcohol and antioxidants found in red wine contribute to the results. Certain substances unique to wines, such as tannins and flavoniods, act as antioxidants and may be the key factors in the positive effects of red wine consumption. Some 400 substances in red wine apparently raise the levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL, or "good" cholesterol) in the blood while decreasing the low-density lipoproteins (LDL, or "bad" cholesterol) and thereby help prevent heart attacks and strokes. HDL is known to lower the risk of arteriosclerosis and heart disease by clearing "bad" cholesterol from the arterial walls and helping eliminate it from the body.

Another study zeroed in on polyphenols such as catechin, quercetin, resveratrol and others which are found in red wine, but not white. The reason they are found in red wines but not white is that these substances are natural components of grape skins. Since red wines are fermented on the skins while white wines are not, it is the fermentation of the skins that seems critical to health promotion. This contention is supported by a study conducted by researchers from Portugal, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark. An extract from red-wine fermentation called ANOX (a trademark of IME, Switzerland) has been developed as a source of red-wine polyphenols. This extract has a significantly greater effect than either red wine or red wine powder on the inhibition of platelet aggregation in vitro and has several health promotion benefits.

The number of papers reporting results is impressive. Anyone interested in searching for them will find the task both challenging and rewarding. Below is a listing of some of articles -- both "popular" and scientific -- I found this morning on the internet. If the links don't work, I offer no apologies (and please don't write me saying they don't work). Over the years I've listed over a hundred links here, but the various websites involved would rather rotate their content than build archives for the public's long-term benefit, and so the items cited often disappear. This listing is not exhaustive. My search yielded over 1.6 million hits, so you can see I only captured a fraction of a fraction of a percentage point of what is out there.

Here is a listing of scientific papers on the subject culled from the PubMed database using a single search query. By altering the query, I could probably have pulled up scores, if not hundreds, of articles. But this gives you some idea of what is out there. Here, because these are from medical journals, as one might expect you will find risk factors mentioned as well as benefits. These articles are less hype and more pure science.