wine and health

It has become common to think of the antioxidant molecule resveratrol as the main beneficial ingredient in wine, but a new study sheds light on how resveratrol without the other components of wine might actually be a bad thing. Sure, resveratrol is a miracle molecule, providing a plausible explanation for many of the health benefits of moderate drinking: lower odds of diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, even longer life by activation of longevity genes. I leaned heavily on these findings in the book. But what I didn’t anticipate was that resveratrol would become such a hugely popular supplement, and in many people’s minds it became a proxy for wine. If a study showed some failing of resveratrol in a laboratory study, it was put out as a denunciation of healthy drinking. Or when it showed some positive effect in mice, it was hailed as proof that resveratrol had all the benefits of wine – without the alcohol. Both are oversimplifications. Resveratrol works best when combined with othe...

A perennial topic around Valentine’s Day is the health benefits of wine and chocolate, and this year we have new evidence that they may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes. Credit is given to high levels of anthocyanins, nutritional antioxidants found in red wine, berries, and of course dark chocolate. Anthocyanins are the pigments that give these foods their color, unlike resveratrol which also comes from the skins of wine grapes. The study, from t he University of East Anglia and Kings College London, consisted of a food questionnaire of 2000 women. Those with the highest intake of anthocyanin-rich foods had lower insulin resistance – a marker for type 2 diabetes - and better blood glucose regulation. But the researchers took it a step further, and documented that this group also had lower levels of markers of inflammation, believed to be associated with a wide range of age-related diseases including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems. Sweet news for your sweetheart ...

When I first developed our resveratrol-based antioxidant skin care product Veraderma in conjunction with Calidora Skin Clinics in 2008, I had good reason to believe in its potent anti-aging capabilities. Resveratrol , the multipurpose miracle molecule whose most familiar source is wine grape skins (hence red wine because it is fermented with the skins), has become a bit of a sensation since then. Several major skin care companies now include wine compounds in their products, and the science continues to reinforce the role of resveratrol in healthy skin (even if its use as an oral supplement remains to be proven.) One example comes from independent research underwritten by L’Oreal, which found that there are specific resveratrol “binding sites” in human skin cells that mediate resveratrol’s protective properties. These binding sites appear to trigger changes within the cells rendering them resistant to damage from environmental toxins. Notably, resveratrol was more effective t...

I am often asked after lecturing on the healthful properties of wine which type is best to drink. Since much of the discussion has to do with the polyphenol antioxidants from the skins and seeds of the grape, red wine is the first criterion since it is fermented with the whole grape rather than the pressed juice. This allows for extraction and concentration of these compounds, familiar ones being resveratrol and tannins. But beyond that, which varietals have the highest concentrations? According to the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, “The best kind of wine is that which is pleasant to him that drinks it” but modern science expects more specifics. (The point of course is that if you have a wine that you enjoy you are more likely to drink regularly and therefore reap the benefits.) But there are several difficulties in singling out certain wines for their healthful properties. Which compounds to measure? Are we talking about heart health or the whole gamut? Is it the varietal of th...

It’s hardly news that wine contains powerful antioxidants, just like other superfoods including blueberries, acai, and pomegranates. What isn’t so obvious though is how these compounds are absorbed into the body and whether or not they actually do any good. This problem of how food-derived nutrients, along with drugs and supplements, are taken up and delivered to “target” tissues throughout the body is called “bioavailability.” There are numerous compounds that perform miracles in a test tube but just aren’t absorbed very well from the digestive tract when taken orally. Resveratrol is a classic example of this; with more than 3,000 research articles published, it’s considered a fountain of youth in a pill (or a glass of wine) by many, but it turns out to have poor bioavailability. There must be something else in wine that explains its long list of health benefits. Researchers at 2 universities in Spain provided some insight into the role of wine as an antioxidant in a recent study. ...