I was reading lately a book on wine from Oz Clark and Margaret Rant and under the chapter where they briefly touch the history of wine there were some interesting references to wine and health in ancient times. This prompted me to devote this Sunday’s article to this interesting subject.
The healthful and nutritive properties of wine have been recognised by the medical profession for thousands of years. Hippocrates recommended specific wines to purge fever, disinfect and dress wounds, as diuretics, or for nutritional supplements, around 450 BC The earliest known printed wine book was written by a French doctor around 1410 AD
Most of pathogens that threaten humans are inhibited or killed off by the acids and alcohols in wine. Because of this, wine was considered to be a much safer drink than much of the available water up until the 18th century.
Wine is also mild natural tranquiliser, serving to reduce anxiety and tension. As part of a normal diet, wine provides the body with energy, with substances that aid digestion, and with small amounts of minerals and vitamins. It can also stimulate the appetite. In addition, wine serves to restore nutritional balance, relieve tension, sedate and act as mild euphoric agent to the convalescent and especially the aged.
Although wine may be the oldest remedy and prophylactic still in use, there was an entire generation of medical professionals, especially in America, that obtained their medical education during the historical period known as prohibition. For nearly 20 years medical texts were purged and censored of any mention of alcohol, including wine, for any application other than external. The medical generation became educators to the following one, perpetuating medical ignorance of the potential health benefits of wine.
In the 1970s, the National Institute of Health, excluded and suppressed evidence from the Framingham Heart Study that showed moderate drinkers had fewer deaths from coronary disease than non-drinkers. Only when the TV news show 60 Minutes reported in November, 1991, the phenomenon that has come to be known as the French Paradox did popular thinking of wine as medicine rather than toxin begin to turn. Typically, the diet of people in Southern France includes a very high proportion of cheese, butter, eggs, offal and other fatty and cholesterol-laden foods. This diet would seem to promote heart disease, but the rate there was discovered to be much lower than in America: herein lays the paradox.
Regular moderate wine drinking was discovered to be one prominent factor. Studies in England and Denmark found the occurrence of coronary disease to be much higher in heavy or binge drinkers and surprise even higher in abstainers. It is very important to note that Europeans generally drink wine and water with their meal, while Americans drink milk, iced tea, soft drinks, or coffee. Moderate consumption of red wine on a regular basis may be preventive against coronary disease and some forms of cancer. The chemical components thought to be responsible are catechins, also known as flavanoids. Catechins are believed to function as anti-oxidants, preventing molecules known as “free-radicals” from doing cellular damage. There are also compounds in grapes and wine (especially red wine, grape juice, dark beers and tea, but absent in white wine, light beers and spirits) called resveratrol and quercetin. Clinical and statistical evidence and laboratory studies have shown these to boost the immune system, block cancer formation, and possibly protect against heart disease and even prolong life.
A Harvard study of factors that influence aging, as reported in the May 8th, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, has shown that resveratrol extends the lifespan of yeast cells by 80 per cent. Preliminary results of tests on multicellular animals are said to be encouraging; study co-author David Sinclair said that “Not many people know about it yet, but those who have almost invariably changed their drinking habits, that is, they drink more red wine.”
More evidence suggests that wine dilates the small blood vessels and helps to prevent angina and clotting. The alcohol in wine additionally helps balance cholesterol towards the good type. Wine might even preserve cognitive function in the elderly. Several European studies have shown the prophylactic effects of regular light to moderate alcohol consumption may include the prevention or postponement of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other forms of dementia.
Could wine be the original brain food? A study published in January, 2003, in the American journal of Gastroenterology showed that moderate, regular drinkers of wine or beer decreases the risk of peptic ulcers and may help rid the body of bacteria suspected of causing them. Both over consumption, especially of beer, and any regular consumption of spirits at even a low level, increased the risk.
Wine drinkers may owe their superior health partly to their general lifestyle. Epidemiological studies found that wine drinkers are better educated, eat more healthfully, smoke less and exercise more than people who prefer drinking beer and spirits. Such factors contribute to the generally longer lives of wine drinkers, some scientists say.
Many of the wine’s healthy components such as polyphenols (include flavonoids, anthocyannins and certain tannins) merge in what has known as the Mediterranean diet. Traditional foods enjoyed in the region include fruit and raw vegetables, onions, garlic and olives – all of which are important sources of polyphenols. Traditional Mediterranean patterns of wine drinking – moderate quantities taken regularly with meals – also seem to confer the most benefits. In one study, men who drunk wine three or four days a week were 30% less likely to get heart disease than were those men who drunk wine one day per week or less.
Since the virtues of drinking wine in moderation were extolled in that broadcast on November 17, 1991, the science of wine and health has gone mainstream. Interest in the health benefits of wine and the Mediterranean diet has intensified across Europe and America at universities, medical laboratories, hospitals, enology schools and pharmaceutical and food companies.
A bit more on the subject, with more emphasis on the nutritional contents of wine, will be featured next week.
