Component in red wine may hold answers in Alzheimer's battle

(USA Today) Bob Sessions has never had a drop of alcohol in his life. Yet at age 86, the teetotaler is eager to see if a natural compound found in red wine can combat disease.

Sessions enrolls Wednesday in a first-of-a-kind government-sponsored study examining whether resveratrol can alter or delay the destruction of the brain in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. Sessions is one of 5.3 million Americans who have Alzheimer's, a fatal illness that has no treatment or cure. He was diagnosed 7½ years ago and still is in the early stages.

"If this research can help anyone, I will feel like I have contributed to a good cause," says Sessions, a former Methodist minister and academic. "I have lost family members to this disease and don't want to see my daughters or grandchildren suffer the same fate."