For years, lushes the world over have leaned on one small tidbit to justify their copious consumption of things like red wine and chocolate: Resveratrol, an antioxidant contained in those foods and others (peanuts, grapes, etc.) was believed to be a key component in fighting inflamation, heart disease and even cancer. A new study out of Johns Hopkins finds that’s just not the case – red wine drinkers are no more likely to live longer or avoid cancer or cardiovascular disease.

“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,” says lead researcher Dr. Richard D. Semba. “The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn’t find that at all.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 783 men and women over the age of 65 who were part of an Aging in the Chianti Region study from 1998 to 2009. They were looking for a link between their dietary resveratrol levels and their likelihood of contracting cancer, inflammation or heart disease. After 9 years of follow-up, the researchers recorded that 34.3% of the participants died, 27.2% developed new cases of cardiovascular disease and 4.6% developed new cases of cancer.

Resveratrol levels were not shown to have any link to any of the studied factors. Even when controlling for age and gender, higher resveratrol levels played no part in anyone’s likelihood of testing positively for cancer, heart disease or inflammations.

Dr. Semba is quick to point out that while resveratrol might not be the “magic bullet” it was once made out to be, that doesn’t mean that certain people don’t see certain benefits from the consumption of things like red wine and chocolate. Studies linking those substances to better health aren” necessarily wrong, just misguided in their assignment of causation.

“It’s just that the benefits, if they are there, must come from other polyphenols or substances found in those foodstuffs,” he adds. “These are complex foods, and all we really know from our study is that the benefits are probably not due to resveratrol.”

As for now, the so-called “French Paradox” – in which a low incidence of coronary heart disease occurs in the presence of a high dietary intake of cholesterol and saturated fat in France – remains thoroughly unexplained.