According to a research on aging, led by Harvard Medical School scientists, the integrity of chromosomes is compromised as people age, and that 'resveratrol' - a minor ingredient of red wine - works by activating a protein known as 'sirtuin' that restores the chromosomes to health.

The study published online Wednesday in the journal Cell, is part of a growing effort by biologists, led by David Sinclair, to understand the sirtuins and other powerful agents that control the settings on the living cell's metabolism, like its handling of fats and response to insulin.

In fact, the finding is just the latest to draw yet more attention to sirtuins that have been a target for a biotech company Sinclair co-founded, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. Sirtris has developed a number of chemicals that mimic resveratrol and are potentially more suitable as drugs, since they activate sirtuin at much lower doses than resveratrol.

Sirtuin's normal role is to help gag all the genes that a cell needs to keep suppressed. It does so by keeping the chromatin, the stuff that wraps around the DNA, packed so tightly that the cell cannot get access to the underlying genes. However, the protein has another critical role - one that is triggered by emergencies like a break in both DNA strands of a chromosome. After a double strand break, sirtuin rushes to the site to help knit the two parts of the chromosome back together.

Sinclair said: "What this paper actually implies is that aspects of aging may be reversible. It sounds crazy, but in principle it should be possible to restore the youthful set of genes, the patterns that are on and off."