I file this under the hard-to-believe category, but I still want to share it with you! In case you missed it, scientists have developed a new pill — an experimental drug — that gives you the same benefits of drinking red wine. (I assume that means health benefits, because there is absolutely no way that a pill can give you the beneficial enjoyment of sharing a bottle of wine with a loved one or dear friend.)

So this pill has a really creative name – SRT1720 – because it acts in a similar way to the SRT1 activator resveratrol, which is found in red wine and believed to bring many health benefits to people. The pill was developed by French, Dutch and American scientists from the University of Louis Pasteur, no less.

According to the website Smart About Health, “Taking one of the drugs is about the same as drinking gallons of wine and getting benefit from the red wine extract resveratrol.” Wow!

And it gets better: “What they now know is that this drug can help people lose weight and prevent diabetes.”

I absolutely love this study.

The thing is … the test was only carried out for 10 weeks on mice which were on a high-fat diet and compared against mice that didn’t take the pill. Studies still need to be done to see if the drug is safe for human use. It also makes me wonder if someone could take the pill and still enjoy a glass or two of red wine.

The results were published in the November issue of Cell Metabolism and seem to have some legs.

What do you think?

Cheers!