People now have some good reason to drink as researchers in the US have claimed that drinking red wine can help live a longer and healthier life.

Scientists found that a plant extract contained in the skin of red grapes helps protect the body against ageing, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

They found the extract, resveratrol, reduced inflammation in humans that led to heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

It has already been shown to prolong life in yeast and animals such as roundworms and fruit flies.

But researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo, writing in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, said they wanted to study its effect on humans.

They concluded that their findings indicated consuming resveratrol could help reduce the development of type 2 diabetes, ageing, heart disease and strokes.

Dr Paresh Dandona, chief of endocrinology, and his team used 20 participants for the research.

Dr Dandona cautioned that while the results were promising, more research had to be done to discount the possibility something else in the extract used was responsible for the anti-inflammatory effects.