(Guardian) - Treating wine as medicine isn't a new idea, but is rubbing the raw ingredients into your skin really the best way to get the health effects? There have been many different studies into the health benefits of wine. Governments have run programmes that have lasted for decades, examining the "outcomes" of large populations to see whether occasional tipplers live longer than abstainers or vice versa. Scientists have isolated chemicals found in red wine such as procyanidins and resveratrol, to establish whether they do have the benefits that have been claimed for them.