wine and health

Much has been made recently about pro basketballer Amar’e Stoudemire’s “vinotherapy ” rehab program, which involves soaking in red wine baths. I tried it myself a few years ago at the Caudalie spa in Bordeaux, and while it was a fabulous experience I would put it more into the pampering category than physical rehab. But the practice does raise a lot of questions, and as with so many issues about wine and health there is a kernel of truth shrouded by a layer of hype. Dr. Richard Baxter and Mathilde Thomas For deep healing to happen, something would have to be absorbed from the wine in significant enough amounts to have an effect, and there is scant evidence that this occurs. A more realistic concept is rejuvenation of the skin, which can absorb certain compounds found in wine. Resveratrol, a powerful antioxidant, has received much attention both as a supplement and a skin care product. But just as there is not enough resveratrol in wine to explain wine’s health benefits alone,...

A recent column in MarketWatch called “10 things your winemaker won’t tell you” has provoked considerable controversy, and the way I see it the statements about wine and health are particularly off base. So my response is a list of what your doctor probably won’t tell you; part of this will refute the MarketWatch piece, part of it will get at the misconceptions that underlie the problem. Author Catey Hill does make some interesting and valid points, but the question of healthy drinking is just too big to be distilled into a paragraph or two. I do know this though: it isn’t the winemaker’s job to tell you about its health benefits, and in fact the feds take a pretty dim view of that idea.        1.         Hill states “Scan any health website these days and you’re likely to find at least one article touting the health benefits of wine, among them heart health and longevity—all the more so since the recent discovery of the antioxidant resverat...

Recent reports that “red wine is not great for health after all” and that “no amount of alcohol is safe” are just plain wrong. This type of misguided reporting and misinterpretation of scientific studies is one of the reasons for my book Age Gets Better with Wine . How is it that the story is still so confused? Kicking off the latest round of hype was a report issued bythe World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer . Noting that the risk is dose-dependent, meaning that heavy drinking has a stronger correlation with some types of cancer, the authors of the report concluded that even moderate drinking carries some degree of risk. This was followed by release of a study in Italy that looked at dietary levels of resveratrol and incidence of diseases of aging. Since the most well-known source of resveratrol is red wine, the lack of a benefit from higher resveratrol consumption was reported as casting doubt on the benefits of red wine. So here we go again: I...

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 ...

Resveratrol, the miracle molecule from red wine, has rocketed from relative obscurity to celebrity status in the supplement market. Its multiple anti-aging properties are given credit for this, and I used resveratrol research in my book “Age Gets Better with Wine” to explain why moderate regular consumption of red wine is a healthy thing. Supplement marketers now proclaim that resveratrol pills have “all the benefits of wine without the alcohol” and tout their own special formulas. Yet there remains a lack of large well-controlled clinical studies to back up these claims. A relatively new field of medical science called translational medicine helps explain the problem. Often called “bench to bedside” research, translational medicine seeks to bridge the gap between laboratory studies and validated clinical treatments. The challenge of translational medicine is enormous, given that more than 90% of treatments (say for example a drug or supplement) fail in human trials after...

What would the ideal anti-aging skin care product look like? To begin with, it would need to provide protection against sun damage from UV exposure . [i] Of course any sunscreen does that, so what we really want is something that can help reverse the effects of UV exposure, which include mutations in the DNA of skin cells. This is where the idea of working at a molecular level comes into play. While many products talk about “DNA repair” the evidence for a role for resveratrol is particularly strong. There are several ways that resveratrol functions in this regard, the best known of which is its powerful antioxidant effects. Healthier DNA means not only more attractive skin but a lower risk of skin cancers . The use of antioxidants such as resveratrol to lower risk of skin cancer is known as chemoprevention. There is evidence that it may help prevent many other types of cancer as well. Another measure of aging has to do with integrity of sequences on the ends of the chromosom...

  Part 1 Recently I was honored to join Professors David Sinclair of Harvard and Joseph Vercauteren of the University of Montpelleir at an anti-aging symposium at the invitation of Mathilde Thomas of Caudalie in Paris. Caudalie has been using wine extracts (and specifically resveratrol) in their products for more than 15 years, after Vercauteren identified it in wine grape vines. Sinclair has become well known for his work identifying the role of sirtuin (SIRT) genes in anti-aging, and resveratrol as a natural sirtuin activator. While much remains to be proven, it is fair to say that science is finally beginning to have an impact on skin care. With an increasing understanding of what causes aging in skin cells and how botanical antioxidants such as resveratrol work at a molecular level, there is no excuse to use anti-aging skin care products that don’t multitask. Before delving into the potential benefits of resveratrol in skin care, it may help to review ho...