It sounds like the elixir of life: a wonder drug that promotes youth, slimness and sexual allure at the same time as protecting against heart disease and cancer. Impossible?

Not to researchers investigating a substance called resveratrol, which they believe could be the holy grail of the pharmaceutical industry: a single drug to counter “lifestyle” illnesses and improve sex appeal.

“If there is such a thing as a true anti-ageing molecule, I would expect the sort of findings we have had with resveratrol,” a leading molecular geneticist from Harvard University said last week.

Tests are showing that resveratrol can help body cells to repair themselves and — a potentially huge selling point — speed up fat-burning within the cells. If it really does work, it is a drug company’s dream: a pill to help you stay young and slim.

Experts in London are also in the hunt. “We got very excited about resveratrol and we still are,” said Louise Donnelly, a researcher at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London, whose work has been sponsored by Pfizer. As well as its other benefits, resveratrol also seems effective against asthma.

“There is no question it is a very interesting molecule,” said Tristan Booth of Royal Mount Pharma, a firm developing the drug for an American government colon cancer research project and also as an anti-viral agent.

The compound was discovered in grape skins and red wine, when scientists were trying to unravel the “French paradox” — how it is that the French can consume copious quantities of alcohol, meat and cheese without succumbing to high rates of disease. Resveratrol may be the answer.

Now the race is on to create and test synthetic forms — and it is not the only wonder drug on the horizon. Last week researchers announced positive results from tests of a drug called Accomplia, which seems to help people to lose weight, stop smoking and reduce their desire for alcohol.

Details of its effects, announced at a meeting of the American Heart Association, are spurring excitement that Accomplia could counter the epidemic of obesity. More than half of the British population is now overweight.

Meanwhile, scientists are working on a number of drugs designed to prolong lifespan. Some talk of extending healthy life to 120 years.

True, in all this research the big drug companies are seeking treatments that will work on specific diseases. But they know that the real goldmine is a pill for the excesses of the 21st-century western lifestyle.

The question is: are such hopes attainable?

LIFESTYLE drugs have arrived with a big fanfare before, but so far their record has been patchy. One of the best known is Viagra, made by Pfizer, which was originally developed for blood pressure. Almost by accident it was also found to boost sexual performance in men suffering from a range of conditions, and there is now vast demand for it among males who are simply unfit, overweight or just too tired and stressed.

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