There has been evidence that resveratrol, a polyphenol compound found in red wine, can reduce the levels of amyloid-beta peptides, which cause the initial symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. However as Roger Corder explains in The Wine Diet the levels of resveratrol found in wine are so minute, that vast quantities of red wine would need to be drunk each day for this compound to have any effect whatsoever. Clearly this would not be recommended unless you were planning to have a very big party and a very short life! It would seem therefore that any suggestion of health benefits due to resveratrol in red wine is a red herring. This is not to say that resveratrol does not have powerful antioxidising and health giving properties.

The most abundant and beneficial polyphenols in red wine are procyanidins, which have been proved to reduce the risks of heart disease Any substance that reduces the risk of heart disease (due to atherosclerosis - the furring up of blood vessels in the heart caused by deposits of oxidized LDL-cholesterol) is likely to reduce the occurence of a stroke or Alzheimer’s Disease, as the main cause of both is atherosclerosis of blood vessels in the brain eventually causing a restriction in blood supply.