Animal studies suggest that drinking red wine daily before and after suffering a stroke could help prevent further brain damage, Reuters reported Oct. 15.

Mice that were induced into strokes suffered less brain damage when they were fed moderate amounts of a compound called resveratrol, found in red grape seeds and skins, which increases production of an enzyme that protects nerve cells.

"When we pretreat the animals with the compound orally, then we observe that we have a significant decrease in the area of stroke damage by about 40 percent," said lead researcher Sylvain Dore of Johns Hopkins University. "What is unique about this study is we have somewhat identified what can be the specific [protective] mechanism" in red wine, added Dore. "Here we are building cell resistance against free-radical damage."

Dore said the protective effect could be achieved by drinking about two glasses of red wine daily, although he stressed that human studies are needed.

The findings were presented at the recent Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Atlanta.