(EliteDaily) - You’ve heard them before, and you’ve even used them as excuses to drink. But what are the health benefits of red wine, really? It helps you slim down and can protect your body from disease, but how?

The Benefits

The main benefit that seems to stick all over the internet is heart health. The tannins that make the wine red contain procyanidins, which help prevent heart disease. The wine also has resveratrol, which helps prevent blood clots, the main cause of heart disease. It’s not a myth; red wine really does help prevent heart disease.

The other, more recent discovery is that a glass of red is equivalent to an hour at the gym. This doesn’t mean you can stop going to the gym all together, but it does mean your glass with dinner can help boost your muscles and speed up your gym results.

A newer study suggests that red wine includes strong antioxidants that work against cancer cells and prevent mental illnesses like Alzheimer’s. Hand in hand with Alzheimer’s is memory loss, and a study confirmed those who drank red wine had stronger memories than those who drank less or none at all.

While it’s not recommended to drink wine or any alcohol while taking antidepressants, wine on its own has some qualities that can help protect you from depression. Heart disease and depression show some similarities, meaning wine can possibly help fight off both diseases.

And ladies, it turns out red wine has even more benefits for us than it does for men. It was proven that red wine drinkers are as much as 50 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer. That doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me. With all of these benefits, it’s hard to find an excuse not to drink red wine.