Engineering a cancer-fighting beer

Resveratrol is getting a lot of press lately. It is the miracle compound which apparently allows the French to enjoy a cuisine loaded with saturated fats and yet avoid heart disease. Its cancer-fighting properties have also been documented.

Some researchers at Rice University are trying to genetically engineer some brewing yeast in order to create beer loaded with resveratrol.

ComputerWorld: University researchers developing cancer-fighting beer

[University of] Wisconsin researchers had noted that adding small doses of resveratrol to the diet of middle-aged mice significantly slows their aging and keeps their hearts healthy. And they added that giving high doses to invertebrates extends their life spans, and high doses also stave off premature death in mice fed a high-fat diet.

[Taylor] Stevenson said that the Rice research group, most of the members of which aren’t old enough to legally drink alcoholic beverages, came up with the idea of adding resveratrol to beer during a casual conversation about potential projects to undertake. “The idea is that it may have greater effects [in beer than in wine],” he added. “The amount of red wine you’d need to drink to get the same results they get with rats in labs is about half a bottle a day.”

He explained that the amount of resveratrol in wine varies from bottle to bottle, since it depends on growing conditions for the grapes and other variables. The researchers felt they could design a beer with higher and more consistent concentrations of the cancer-fighting chemical.

(via Scribal Terror (via Wired (via ComputerWorld)))