Red wine compound shown to prevent prost...( BIRMINGHAM Ala. Researchers at the ...),Health

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have found that nutrients in red wine may help reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.

The study involved male mice that were fed a plant compound found in red wine called resveratrol, which has shown anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties. Other sources of resveratrol in the diet include grapes, raspberries, peanuts and blueberries.

In the study resveratrol-fed mice showed an 87 percent reduction in their risk of developing prostate tumors that contained the worst kind of cancer-staging diagnosis. The mice that proved to have the highest cancer-protection effect earned it after seven months of consuming resveratrol in a powdered formula mixed with their food.

Other mice in the study, those fed resveratrol but still developed a less-serious form of prostate cancer, were 48 percent more likely to have their tumor growth halted or slowed when compared to mice who did not consume the compound, the UAB research team said.

The findings were published in August through the online edition of the Journal of Carcinogenesis.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that resveratrol consumption through red wine has powerful chemoprevention properties, in addition to its apparent heart-health benefits, said lead study author Coral Lamartiniere, Ph.D., of UABs Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology.

An earlier UAB study published May 2006 in the same journal found resveratrol-fed female mice had considerable reduction in their risk of breast cancer.

Lamartiniere said his research team has been pleasantly surprised at the chemoprevention power of wine and berry polyphenols like resveratrol in animal models.

"A cancer prevention researcher lives for these days when they can make that kind of finding," Lamartiniere said. "I drink a glass a day every evening because Im concerned about prostate cancer. It runs in
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