(Wine-Searcher) - A recent study shows that drinking red wine– or taking resveratrol supplements – isn't an ingredient for a longer life after all.

U.S. researchers may have found a flaw with the "French Paradox," or the notion that people who drink red wine can somehow avoid the pitfalls of a high-fat diet.

A study published Monday found that resveratrol – one of the highly touted antioxidants in red wine – did not help people live longer.

Nor did it help people avoid cancer or heart disease, according to the research in JAMA Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

"This study suggests that dietary resveratrol from Western diets in community-dwelling older adults does not have a substantial influence on inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or longevity," said the research, led by Richard Semba of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Research on animals has suggested resveratrol, a polyphenol also found in some Asian plant roots as well as peanuts and berries, may have beneficial health effects.

Although not proven in human studies, those findings have contributed to a $30 million annual market for resveratrol supplements in the United States alone, researchers said.

The latest study was based on measures of resveratrol levels in the urine of nearly 800 people in two small villages in Tuscany, Italy.

Researchers measured their urine for signs of resveratrol, to see if the amounts they were getting through their diet would contribute to improved health.

The subjects were 65 or older when they joined the study in 1998.

In the nine years that followed, 34 percent of those in the study died, and researchers could find no correlation between early death and resveratrol levels.