wine on the beachEvery month or so, it seems like there's new research about the secret (or not-so-secret) powers of booze! Wine, specifically, usually of the red variety. If you ask me, it seems like researchers and winemakers are in cahoots. Trying to give us even more reason to love our vino. (Pfft, as if we needed that!) Most recently, an article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry asserted that being a wino might save you from turning into a lobster when you hit the beach sans sunblock or big floppy hat. Yup, again we're hearing that a bottle of red is your BFF in the sunscreen department!

The scientists explain the phenomenon by saying that flavonoids present in grapes can stop the chemical reaction that causes cells to die, which is what causes skin damage. But, before you go to town with that sangria at a pool party this weekend, consider this ...

The study was conducted in vitro. In a lab. Not on real people, out in the hot-as-blazes sunshine we're all getting a hardcore dose of this summer, mm'k?

What's more, it's kind of blatant that the researchers who conducted the study are just looking for another way to plug the "Mediterranean lifestyle" and their resources, like, ehm, grapes and wine! Both are awesome, don't get me wrong. But I'm not falling for some gimmicky sunscreen or skin cream made from the fruit. Products that supposedly harness the power of wine's "miracle phenol," resveratrol, have been shamelessly peddled to women for the past few years! It's supposed to prevent or reverse aging, because all the women living in Greece and Spain look 25, right? Whatever. That's just one thing.

But to assert that DRINKING wine is going to stave off sun damage? Ehhhhh. Of course it sounds like a dream come true! I just wouldn't be so sure. It's more likely that drinking more alcohol will make your skin look worse and speed aging. Plus, drinking in the heat and sun is almost always a recipe for disaster. At the very least, you could konk out and end up completely over-baked. (Just ask anyone who's ever been on an all-inclusive vacay!)

Hey, I'm all about a nice glass of vino. I'm even a little bit of a wine snob myself, but I'm just not buying into a hype-driven myth research that my taste for a creamy Chardonnay is going to protect me from sunburn. That kind of thing only happens in winos' dreams.

What do you think about this new research?

 

Image via Maureen Didde/Flickr