Antioxidants - substances that are contained in fruits, green tea and red wine - have the ability to inhibit influenza viruses cause respiratory complications.

This year a lot of attention is focused for the word "flu", because of in addition to the usual, "seasonal" flu, humanity knows the combination of letters and numbers, like H1N1, meaning swine flu. According to statistics at the beginning of 2012, the world's 417,813 registered cases of the virus, of which 5 455 - with fatal consequences.

One of the features of the swine flu is that it is stronger than other strains of influenza virus, affects the respiratory tract and lungs.

But other strains of flu can often lead to complications such as pneumonia. Scientists from several universities and medical centers located in the U.S. state of Alabama, conducted a study on the impact of influenza lungs and tried to find ways to deal with this influence. They managed to get some interesting results, which will be published in the November issue of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

During the work, scientists have shown that the main contribution to the fact that influenza viruses infect the respiratory system exactly makes the virus protein M2, which destroys the cells that make up the inner surface of the lung, and thus creating conditions for the development of disease.

In their experiments, the scientists in different proportions and at different times introduced the M2 protein and a number of compounds, which are components of the lung cells of frogs and their eggs.

As a result, it was observed that the protein, a component of the influenza virus, significantly reduces functionality of lung proteins.

During the experiment, one segment of protein M2 was isolated, responsible for damage of lung cells. But the most important result of the scientists from the state of Alabama is that the M2 protein was not able to damage lung membranes in the presence of substances that are oxidation inhibitors or antioxidants.

These substances are found in fresh fruits and berries, vegetables, nuts and herbs, as well as some products made from them, such as fresh fruit juices, fruit drinks, green tea and natural grape wine. The antioxidants in red wine are more than in white wine.