A compound present in red wine may have qualities that are beneficial to the health of certain people.

Such is the opinion of specialists from the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute, who noted that the resveratrol found in the hamper drink can be combined with rapamycin to positive effect.

It has been claimed that when the two substances work together they can have a tumour-suppressing impact on breast cancer cells.

According to Charis Eng, chair of the Genomic Medicine Institute at the organisation, while in clinical trials cancer cells have become resistant to rapamycin used on its own, the addition of resveratrol does make a difference.

"Our findings show that resveratrol seems to mitigate rapamycin-induced drug resistance in breast cancers, at least in the laboratory," she said.

Studying another hamper product – cheese – scientists at Northwestern University undertook an experiment using mice and discovered probiotic bacteria may be capable of tackling colonic illnesses.