The Benefits of Drinking Wine

In 1978 a young scientist based in Cardiff, Wales Dr. A. Selyn St. Leger carried out a random search for clues to the causes of coronary heart disease. By pure chance he was able to get details of alcohol consumption by country, split into its components, beer, wine, and spirits. He decided to break down the figures to see if any one type of beverage was better than any other. The results were astonishing.

When applied to coronary heart disease for men aged 55 to 64, the highest risk period for males, it was quite clear that wine was easily the winner. The traditional beer and spirit bastions of Finland, Scotland, USA, Canada, New-Zealand, England, Wales, Ireland and Norway had the highest death rates from coronary heart disease. The lowest rates of heart disease were the wine consuming countries, France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. He concluded that if wine had such a positive impact on coronary heart deaths then it was more likely to be due to constituents other than alcohol.

It was two scientists at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia, David Klurfeld and David Kritchevsky who in 1980 conducted animal experiments to compare the effects of wine, beer, and spirits in protecting against Atherosclerosis the formation of fatty deposits in the arteries.

They developed a food regime equivalent to the north American full fat diet! They fed the diet to 48 male rabbits for three months with the rabbits divided into six groups given respectively water, the control group, ethanol, red wine, white wine, beer and whisky. At the end of three months the rabbits were sent to heaven and their hearts and arteries examined. Fatty foam similar to the fatty streaks found in human arteries were in evidence. The scientists were surprised at the speed with which the north American-style diet had produced atherosclerosis in rabbits. One hundred percent of the control group and the group fed beer had developed fatty lesions in their coronary arteries. Those on red wines were down to forty percent and they therefore concluded that aortic atherosclerosis was significantly reduced by red wine.

The evidence that wine and especially red wine is beneficial to coronary heart disease was given a further boost in May 1995 when a paper was published in the British Medical Journal by Dr. Morten Gronbaek. The report was based on research relating to six thousand men and seven thousand women between the ages of thirty and seventy-nine over a twelve year period.

The report showed that nearly all the heart-and life-protective benefits came from drinking wine. It showed that up to a level of three to five glasses of wine a day reduced the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke and indeed the less risk of dying of any disease! This report went a long way to explaining the French paradox which had hit the world four years earlier.

In November 1991 in the space of twenty minutes the wine industry was hit by something akin to a hurricane. Millions of north Americans tuned into a CBS news magazine 6o minutes and learnt for the first time from Serge Renaud a French doctor that in his view red wine was the most powerful drug yet discovered in preventing coronary heart disease. This phenomenon became known as the French paradox and sent many north Americans to the liquor store to purchase red wine where by the end of the week sales of red wine were up a staggering forty percent. Never underestimate the power of television.

What then is the paradox? The French, particularly those living in south west France defy all the health rules by smoking heavily, eating large quantities of saturated fats and taking little exercise. They have one of the lowest heart attack rates in the world. In contrast, Glasgow in Scotland has among the highest heart attack rates in the world.

A woman in Glasgow is twelve times more likely to die of a heart attack than a woman living in Toulouse. Canadian and American males are nearly three times as likely to die from cardiovascular disease as males from Toulouse.

Coronary heart disease claims more lives in Canada and America than any other disease, up to forty percent of all deaths therefore it is not surprising that the CBS news program had such an impact. Doctors refer the so-called “bible-belt” in Southern America where there is a high incidence of teetotalers as “stroke alley.”

Wine, and red wine in particular go to work defending the body on two fronts. The alcohol it contains reduces harmful cholesterol and clotting agents whilst the antioxidants fight illness and even the aging process. However the real secret of the French paradox relates to how wine is consumed. In general the French will consume wine slowly with their meal whilst both beer and spirits tend not to be consumed with food.

It must be stressed that it is the moderate consumption of wine with food that has the beneficial effects. There are many people in France drinking large quantities of wine each day which can lead to high cirrhosis and cancer rates as well as traffic deaths and high rates of suicide.

In recent years scientists have concluded that many human diseases are caused by a group of “free radicals”. These rogue particles attack healthy cell membranes through the process of oxidation. The best protection against these rogue particles comes from “antioxidants”.

Exposure to toxic substances will release free radicals, which is why smoking has a negative effect on the human system. The body has its own defense against free radicals. However, if the free radicals are produced in large numbers and swamp the body’s defenses, then, the only answer is antioxidants. These antioxidants come in the form of vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene.

A group of compounds called flavonoids first discovered in the 1930s also have some antioxidant properties. Flavonoids are found in tea, onions, apples and red wine. Red wine contains more than a hundred flavoniods but not all of them are antioxidants.

Work was done at UC Davis in 1993 which showed that in the test tube red wine could inhibit oxidation of the “bad” LDL cholesterol and that some wine flavonoids were up to twenty percent more effective at inhibiting oxidation than vitamin E.

It is generally in red wine and not white wine that the benefits of flavonoids are found, as the flavonoids are found in the skin of the grape. The production method of red and white wine vary as the juice is quickly run off the skins of white wine whilst with many red wines the skins are macerated for a number of days.

Antioxidants are unstable and in fruit and vegetables can be lost in transportation and storage, however in red wine they are preserved and remain intact. It has been estimated that two glasses of red wine may enhance the flavonoid content for a human by up to forty percent.

One of the most promising flavonoids discovered in red wine is resveratrol a natural anti-fungicide found on the skin of the grape. Resveratrol has been known for centuries in China and Japan where it has been used as a medicine. The resveratrol content of red wines varies dramatically by grape variety, geographical location and production method.

Resveratrol is more abundant in cool, damp climates like Burgundy or Oregon compared to warmer drier climates. Different grape varieties produce different levels of resveratrol. The “king” at producing resveratrol is the pinot noir noted as one of the hardest varieties to grow anywhere in the world!

Another antioxidant being studied is quercetin found in fruit, vegetables and red wine and also beneficial to coronary disease. There were, initially, some concerns that quercetin may be cancer – causing. If this was true it would have had devastating effects on fresh fruit and vegetable consumption.

Terrence Leighton, who discovered that quercetin does not give any evidence of gene toxicity but acts as an anticarcinogen, An anti cancer agent. Quercetin was found especially effective in stopping or preventing cancer of the colon when artificially induced into mice. It blocked the activity of compounds that promote cancer growth therefore turning off the cancer before it started.

Quercetin, unlike resveratrol is not specific to a grape variety. It appears that the amount of sunshine is the only factor in determining quercetin levels in the grape. The length of time the skin is left in contact with the juice will determine how much quercertin is extracted. However, quercetin at this stage of the process is inactive and is only converted to active quercetin when allowed to remain for a time on the leese, the yeast leftovers.

It is the flavanoids in the skins of red wines that appear to bear out the French paradox and the relative low rate of coronary disease in France. For a nation whose diet and lifestyle on the face of it leave a lot to be desired the French have over the years realized that moderate consumption of red wine with a meal is good for you.