Component of red wine quells inflammation in chronic inflammatory lung disease (COPD)
A component of red wine, resveratrol, seems to damp down the inflammatory process in the progressive lung disease COPD, finds a small study in Thorax. So effective was resveratrol in laboratory tests that the authors suggest that the compound could be developed to treat the disease. COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is irreversible and progressive. The lungs deteriorate, making it difficult, and eventually impossible, to breathe. Treatment is at best palliative. Smoking is the chief culprit. The cells involved in the inflammatory process in COPD include macrophages. These cells produce powerful chemicals, such as interleukins, which stimulate the growth and activity of various o