The next wave of research on wine and health has brought in some good news for those who love red wine and fruits as a recent study conducted at Purdue University in the US indicates that a chemical compound in red wine and certain fruits in varying proportions, has the ability to control fat formation and fight obesity

Kee-Hong Kim, Assistant Professor in Food Science at Purdue led a research study conducted at the West Lafayette University, which shows that Resveratrol in red wine and fruits like blackberry and passion fruit turns into piceatannol in humans on consumption, which effectively stops fat cells from maturing. This chemical resembles in structure with resveratrol which has already been established as an anti-oxidant with properties to fight heart disease, cancer and several other diseases.

‘Piceatannol actually alters the timing of gene expressions, functions and insulin action during adipogenesis, a process in which early stage fat cells become mature fat cells thus delaying or even causing complete inhibition of adipogenesis’, says Kim.

He used cell culturing to confirm his findings, but in future he aims to see if it makes a difference on animal obesity. He wants to find ways of stopping the degeneration of piceatannol, so that large concentrations can be directed into the bloodstream to prevent adipogenesis and thus increasing body fat.