Drinking red wine and eating chocolates, however frequent, may not make a person have improved health, a study released on Monday by U.S. researchers said.

That is because one of the highly touted antioxidants in those food staples, the resveratrol, did not help people to actually live longer. Moreover, it also did not help for people to avoid cancer or heart disease, the research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, said.

"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," Richard Semba of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who led the research, said.

Found in dark chocolate, red wine, and berries, the anti-oxidant resveratrol has no significant impact on life-span, heart disease or cancer.

"The story of resveratrol turns out to be another case where you get a lot of hype about health benefits that doesn't stand the test of time," Semba said.

The study tested 800 people, aged 65 or older, in two small villages in Tuscany, Italy over the span of nine years beginning 1998.

Researchers studied the resveratrol levels in the urine of their study subjects, to see if the amounts they were getting through their diet would contribute to improved health.

Over the course of nine years, 34 per cent of the study subjects or 268 participants died, while 27.2 per cent who didn't have heart disease at the start of the study eventually developed the condition.

Researchers said they did not find any correlation between their early deaths and resveratrol levels.

"Nor could we find any significant links between resveratrol levels and the development of cancer or heart disease," researchers said.

"The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn't find that at all."

That thinking has helped pharmaceuticals in the U.S. alone to rake up $30 million per year for producing resveratrol supplements, researchers said.