healthy wine drinkers...

I certainly hope your epiphany re wine consumption is correct. In fact, I'll _drink_ to that! :^D

S moT

I think those people who really make the effort to properly enjoy something like wine (and food too) also care about other important things to life such as proper health and education. Just as a trend and not as a general rule. I'm 25 and very healthy.

Erik

There has been a lot of reserarch on wine drinking and good health. Research suggests that moderate drinkers have lower rates of heart disease than non drinkers and heavy drinkers. Moreover, some research suggests that red wine is more heart healthy than other alcoholic beverages. But this latter result may reflect the healthier lifestyles of wine drinkers vs. drinkers of hard liquor, an issue you raise in your post.

If you go a google search of this group, you can read past discussions of this issue (there are many). The Wine Spectator website also has many articles on recent research on wine and health.

Tom Schellberg

I believe that there are too many variables to give a definitive response. Would be difficult to isolate other aspects of life-style.

exceedingly

Of course. One factor often overlooked is the correlation between income and wine consumption and the similar correlation between income and health. Unless one does a carefully controlled, double blind study, little can be concluded. However, there have now been almost a dozen such studies carried out worldwide over the past decade with the following conclusions:

1) moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower rates of heart disease and certain forms of cancer 2) red wine offers more health benefits than white wine or other forms of alcohol 3) part of the health benefits can be attributed to certain phytochemicals (quercetin and resveratrol in particular) that are found in abundance in red wine, but there are other, yet unidentified factors, that also contribute to its health benefits 4) diet, excercise and genetics make far more difference to one's health than a glass of red wine will -- there is no substitute for a healthy lifestyle

HTH Mark Lipton

Mark

How much better is wine than grape juice?

Welch's has bought off a popular radio announcer (whose name escapes me at the moment) to entoll the virtues of (god awful, my opinion) Concord grape juice. The claim is the American Heart Assn. has certified it as being healthy for your heart.

I'll bet thst the American Heart Assn. does not want to advertise the health benefits of red wine, as it is too much of a political football.

Have any studies compared the benefits of red wine with red grape juice?

Tom Schellberg

Tom, There was a very provactive paper in Science last year that compared the in vitro (in the test tube) ability of various beverages to affect one protein implicated in carcinogenesis. In that experiment, red wine was found to be markedly superior to white wine and unfermented grape juice to have no effect at all. Interestingly, they also found that all red wines were not equal, with the more tannic, full-bodied reds proving to be the most effective. Overall, it seems that while grape juice contains some of the important phytochemicals, the presence of alcohol and other fermentation products is needed, too.

Mark Lipton

Folks,

I think the overall point is that resveratrol mimics caloric restriction. Caloric restriction is well-known and has been studied for decades and definitely prolongs life in most/all living organisms that have Sirtuins that I have heard of. They even bred one without Sirtuins and caloric restriction failed to extend life. This is most definitely one of the major longevity gene/enzymes that's been discovered. No question about it. That Harvard and BioMol could pair it with Caloric restriction is good research.

Therefore, the point is not that red wine is drunk by rich people and rich people live longer anyway so it won't help them (why would you think it wouldn't?).

The point is that it mimics caloric restriction which has been investigated ad nauseum and does what it does to prolong life, demonstrably.

My chief beef is that wine during the work week in the evenings just doesn't wash. It creates minor and major headaches and if you buy organic wine instead that doesn't cause as much of a headache you're still dealing with alcohol before bedtime which has bad effects on the soundness of sleep. I find that I have to imbibe around lunchtime on weekends (cant do that during the workweek) and it invariably makes me take a weekend nap (remember alcohol causes awakenings but may help you get to sleep and not stay asleep.)

So a pill is definitely needed and I think that

has that pill. (Btw, I get no financial gain and am not associated with the firm.)

There is def>

Erik,

There are so many studies, there are studies of the studies.

Bottom line though is Resveratrol and its high concentration in Pinot Noir, which is the wine type producing the resveratrol used in almost all of the studies of it.

As one poster points out - Resveratrol mimics a restricted calorie diet which is one of the things proven to extend life. However, moderation is again called for and the time to consume the wine is important also. The regimen calls for 2 (2-4 oz) glasses of Pinot Noir for men and 1 glass for women. It also works best if consumed with the evening meal.

Grape juice is on the list of things that contain Resveratrol but the amount is almost negligible compared to Pinot Noir. The closest wine to Pinot Noir in resveratrol, if I remember correctly, is burgundy and it contains a fraction of the resveratrol that Pinot Noir does.

Fill the glass and let's start eating,

Bob

Erik Hornung wrote:

??? FYI - Red Burgundy *is* Pinot Noir, exclusively... Anders

That's actually quite a bit of wine for a man to consume prior to trying to fall asleep. I would recommend a vigorous workout earlier in the day to ensure the person is physically tired enough to really sleep, because that much wine will help you fall asleep but make for a fairly shallow sleep in most people.

I think this really depends how much wine you consume before bedtime, and especially how much. One glass, I think for most people wont even feel the effects of the alcohol. I never have more the one glass with my dinner at

6ish, and im in bed by 10ish. However, this is me...i know it's probably different for other people. Also, i've never suffered from headaches by drinking red wine, but I do have a pal who does get bad headaches after drinking red....

Erik

2 Glasses!?!? Yeah! I like the sounds of that!

I have no idea why, but i've never tried Pinot Noir...I guess I know what i'll be picking up from the liquor store on the way home from the gym.

Erik

True, but be careful in equating the overall health benefits of resveratrol (and even more, red wine) to its activation of sirtuins alone. Resveratrol has also been shown to inhibit the activity of the transcription factor NF-kappa-B and to inhibit the enzyme endothelin-1. It may be that sirtuins are an "upstream" controller of multiple biochemical pathways, but that remains to be demonstrated. Additionally, there is ample evidence to suggest that the health benefits accorded red wine are not due to resveratrol

*alone*. As I previously said, the flavonol quercetin, also found in wine, has been shown to have its own fair share of beneficial health effects and there is reason to believe that wine may contain yet more small molecules that impart health benefits. Even alcohol has been found to impart some health benefits, though there are certainly adverse health effects also attributable to it. As I said before, it's a complex issue.

Mark Lipton

British health and fitness guru, Ranulph Fiennes, advocates 1 glass about 30 mins prior to your evening meal, each day.

My own experience (and that of my family) is that a glass or two before or during supper does lower bad cholesterol within 7 days.

realization.

Whooaa...do you have this post in an english version? I'm just kidding...didn't know after my original post that i'd be reading all this scientific information...head hurts.

Maybe my dad is right. Everything seems to cause cancer, and everything seems to prevent cancer.

Erik

No question about it. I still drink 2 glasses of red wine each day of the weekend; but I can't do that during the weekday because of the social unacceptability at work. Taking a sealed flask of 4 oz's mid-day would simply not fit in. This isn't Europe. It's prudish America.

So for me, a resveratrol/quercetin combination pill would be great, but only if the pill were properly made. Non-sealed gelcaps with transparent skins are useless as are the manufacturing methods of most resveratrol pill makers.

I actually think

has the right approach for how to make the Resveratrol pill. I'd be more than willing to take one of those daily M-F, take a couple glasses a day of Pinot Noir on the weekend, and supplement slightly on the weekdays in the evenings with 2-3 oz's of my favorite red (which isn't Pinot Noir and happens to be Merlot.)

Pinot Noir is a fairly tricky grape according to most growers. The low-end bottles tend to be more costly from the northerly Pinot Noir growers as far as my suppliers are concerned.

It certainly doesn't have the mellowness of a Merlot but I suppose one could sacriligously mix a half of Merlot with a half of Pinot Noir!

Thanks for the info Mark. Certainly some of the talk we have had on this discussion is a bit misleading, from the absolute inane "Burgundy contains little Pinot Noir" to the insinuation that Pinot Noir is the red wine associated with resverterol. I suspect it has somewhat greater amounts than Cab. Sauv. and Zin, but not enough to discount the value of these latter varieties. Moreover, your quoted reserarch suggests that the more tannic reds (eg Cab. Sauv) are more effective cancer fighters.

Just drink a varierty of red wines (Cab Sauv, Merlot, Syran, Pinot Noir...your choice) and you probably get the desired benefits.

I know I do fine if I do not mix red wine and sharp cheese, and I take calcium and magnesium.

Tom Schellberg