red wine's benefits to the heart!

So i was pottering around the house this morning when something about the croi charity ball came on the radio- basically they were announcing starting recruiting for the New York City marathon. And it got me thinking.... could i do the marathon? Well its only been a couple of hours but I'm giving it serious consideration. Now I consider myself relatively fit- even if i do smoke, eat a lot, and enjoy beer as much as the next person... but even i realize how much of a challenge this would be! So this started me thinking about healthy little habits to get in to... namely quit smoking, eat healthier, and cut down big time on the beer. But red wine is not without its benefits... Now I'm not saying guzzling a bottle of wine a night is the best way to prepare for the New York City Marathon, but there are certain benefits. One major one is a glass of wine will let you unwind every now and then- I think this is probably one of the more important factors when undertaking something like this, cause i can imagine it being pretty easy to start going insane after a couple of months intensive training. So the Glass of wine every now and then will keep you sane, but what are the technical health benefits to Red Wine.

Well people became to take note of red wine as being good for health around the 1980's when two guys- Law and Wald- started to focus on the French Paradox. Basically they noticed that the french had such a fatty diet with all those cheeses and meats- but they had relatively low rate of heart problems in comparison to the rest of the world! So one thing that jumped out at them was the french consumption of Red Wine. The main idea behind this was research carried out in to one of the components of red wine- resveratrol. Essentially all it is is a way for grapes and other plants use to protect themselves against rot. But it has been discovered to increase HDL Cholesterol (which essentially scour the walls of Blood Vessels taking bad Cholesterol with them) and therefore prevent Blood Clotting. So there you have it... planning on running a marathon like I think i might... then maybe a glass or two of red wine, might give me that extra little bit I need!