Dr. Simon Maxwell, who graduated in medicine in 1986, has shown that drinking red wine helps to combat (fight against) heart disease. Red wine provides protection against heart disease because it improves antioxidant(抗氧) activity in the blood. And the red wine is ten to twenty times more powerful in providing antioxidant protection than human blood itself. To test the idea, twelve university students offered their help to medical science and sat down to a meal washed down with three large glasses of Bordeaux. Four hours later, the scientists found that the red wine was still at work in their veins providing significant protection against the effects of cholesterol (胆固醇). Simon Maxwell is careful not to recommend wine drinking for health reasons, because of the other undesirable effects of alcohol. He hopes that tile research may enable scientists to isolate the elements which have good effects so that they can be provided, perhaps as tablets, with no damaging effect on the liver or brain. The news is not so good for those who prefer other drinks. White wine is only five to ten times as effective as blood in resisting oxidization and beer is even less effective. It was the fact that French eat as much cholesterol as the British but have a quarter of the amounts of heart disease which made the research. Which drink is the least effective to provide antioxidant protection?