THE WEEK February 6, 2009--Health & Science News:
"The Promise of Grape Seeds"
Grape seed extract holds promise as a potent anti-cancer agent, according to researchers at University of Kentucky.  They found natural substances called proanthocyanidins in grape seeds killed a high percentage of leukemia cells within one day without damaging healthy cells.  Previous laboratory studies found that grape seed extract also protected against breast, prostate and skin cancer.  More research nees to be done to determine if grape seed extract is effective against cancer cells in the body, not just in test tube.

• Stephen Taylor, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Queensland, after researching how Resveratrol in red wines gets absorbed by the body may theorized that it may happen via the mucous membranes in the mouth.  In which case, he suggests, sipping red wines slowly to allow them to linger in the mouth before swallowing could account for red-wine drinkers being generally healthier in epidemiological studies.
  
  Roger Corder, author of "Red Wine Diet" and professor at the William Harvey Research Institute-London, writes that younger red wines with more tannin than older reds may have greater potential for increasing health benefits.  As red wines age, polyphenols, such as tannins, will precipitate as sediment, while other polyphenols react with each other to form new compounds.  So the anti-oxidant power of red wine tannins is obviously higher in younger reds.