Now, here's a good reason to have that nice red wine: A component found in the drink may not only help reduce the effects of obesity, it could increase your endurance as well.

According to an New York Times report, an ordinary laboratory mouse will run one kilometer on a treadmill before collapsing from exhaustion. But mice given resveratrol, a minor component of red wine and other foods, run twice as far.

They also have energy-charged muscles and a reduced heart rate, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell by Johan Auwerx and colleagues at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France.

“Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,” Dr. Auwerx said in an interview.

I'll drink to that.

-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com