Red Wine for Health

[David]

Let's face it. Red wine is good for you. In moderation. NY Times
SOURCE

The Claim: A Little Alcohol Can Help You Beat a Cold
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

THE FACTS

When it comes to quick remedies for colds, many people insist that a glass of brandy or a hot toddy — whiskey with hot water and lemon juice — is just what the doctor ordered.

It’s not difficult to see how mild inebriation might have the potential to relieve cold and flu symptoms, but so far no study has shown that alcohol has the ability to kill germs in the bloodstream or stop a cold in its tracks. And while alcohol may provide temporary relief, it can prolong symptoms by increasing dehydration.

Nonetheless, two large studies have found that although moderate drinking will not cure colds, it can help keep them at bay. One, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon in 1993, looked at 391 adults and found that resistance to colds increased with moderate drinking, except in smokers.

Then, in 2002, researchers in Spain followed 4,300 healthy adults, examining their habits and susceptibility to colds. The study, in The American Journal of Epidemiology, found no relationship between the incidence of colds and consumption of beer, spirits, Vitamin C or zinc. But drinking 8 to 14 glasses of wine per week, particularly red wine, was linked to as much as a 60 percent reduction in the risk of developing a cold. The scientists suspected this had something to do with the antioxidant properties of wine.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Alcohol will not help cure a cold, though moderate consumption may reduce susceptibility.

[pbrauer]

Originally Posted by David

Let's face it. Red wine is good for you. In moderation.

That's true, I try to have a glass of red wine at dinner. I drink Charles Shaw aka Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joes. Very good wine despite the low price.

Also, my wife's cousin has his own vinyard and when he visits, he brings a stash of his wine.

Pete

[David]

NY Times

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging
By NICHOLAS WADE

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

The report is part of a new wave of interest in drugs that may enhance longevity. On Monday, Sirtris, a startup founded in 2004 to develop drugs with the same effects as resveratrol, completed its sale to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

Sirtris is seeking to develop drugs that activate protein agents known in people as sirtuins.

“The upside is so huge that if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine,” Dr. David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of the company, said Tuesday.

Serious scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs, but the door has now been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

The reflex can be prompted by a faminelike diet, known as caloric restriction, which extends the life of laboratory rodents by up to 30 percent but is far too hard for most people to keep to and in any case has not been proven to work in humans.

Research started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed recently that the famine-induced switch to tissue preservation might be triggered by activating the body’s sirtuins. Dr. Sinclair, a former student of Dr. Guarente, then found in 2003 that sirtuins could be activated by some natural compounds, including resveratrol, previously known as just an ingredient of certain red wines.

Dr. Sinclair’s finding led in several directions. He and others have tested resveratrol’s effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts in red wine. One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

The company Sirtris, meanwhile, has been testing resveratrol and other drugs that activate sirtuin. These drugs are small molecules, more stable than resveratrol, and can be given in smaller doses. In April, Sirtris reported that its formulation of resveratrol, called SRT501, reduced glucose levels in diabetic patients.

The company plans to start clinical trials of its resveratrol mimic soon. Sirtris’s value to GlaxoSmithKline is presumably that its sirtuin-activating drugs could be used to treat a spectrum of degenerative diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer’s, if the underlying theory is correct.

Separately from Sirtris’s investigations, a research team led by Tomas A. Prolla and Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin, reports in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday that resveratrol may be effective in mice and people in much lower doses than previously thought necessary. In earlier studies, like Dr. Auwerx’s of mice on treadmills, the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.

Resveratrol can also be obtained in the form of capsules marketed by several companies. Those made by one company, Longevinex, include extracts of red wine and of a Chinese plant called giant knotweed. The Wisconsin researchers conclude that resveratrol can mimic many of the effects of a caloric-restricted diet “at doses that can readily be achieved in humans.”

The effectiveness of the low doses was not tested directly, however, but with a DNA chip that measures changes in the activity of genes. The Wisconsin team first defined the pattern of gene activity established in mice on caloric restriction, and then showed that very low doses of resveratrol produced just the same pattern.

Dr. Auwerx, who used doses almost 100 times greater in his treadmill experiments, expressed reservations about the new result. “I would be really cautious, as we never saw significant effects with such low amounts,” he said Tuesday in an e-mail message.

Another researcher in the sirtuin field, Dr. Matthew Kaeberlein of the University of Washington in Seattle, said, “There’s no way of knowing from this data, or from the prior work, if something similar would happen in humans at either low or high doses.”

A critical link in establishing whether or not caloric restriction works the same wonders in people as it does in mice rests on the outcome of two monkey trials. Since rhesus monkeys live for up to 40 years, the trials have taken a long time to show results. Experts said that one of the two trials, being conducted by Dr. Weindruch, was at last showing clear evidence that calorically restricted monkeys were outliving the control animals.

But no such effect is apparent in the other trial, being conducted at the National Institutes of Health.

The Wisconsin report underlined another unresolved link in the theory, that of whether resveratrol actually works by activating sirtuins. The issue is clouded because resveratrol is a powerful drug that has many different effects in the cell. The Wisconsin researchers report that they saw no change in the mouse equivalent of sirtuin during caloric restriction, a finding that if true could undercut Sirtris’s strategy of looking for drugs that activate sirtuin.

Dr. Guarente, a scientific adviser to Sirtris, said the Wisconsin team only measured the amount of sirtuin present in mouse tissues, and not the more important factor of whether it had been activated.

Dr. Sinclair said the definitive answer would emerge from experiments, now under way, with mice whose sirtuin genes had been knocked out. “The question of how resveratrol is working is an ongoing debate and it will take more studies to get the answer,” he said.

Dr. Robert E. Hughes of the Buck Institute for Age Research said there could be no guarantee of success given that most new drug projects fail. But, he said, testing the therapeutic uses of drugs that mimic caloric restriction is a good idea, based on substantial evidence.

SOURCE

[rachel]

Most foods and drinks are good for you in one way or another, in moderation.

[babydot94513]

Please define: "moderation" for me<g>

JD

FWIW, I go to the doctor at least once a year for the old check-up, and I spill my soul on what I eat and drink. I have yet to have my doctor tell me to stop drinking red wine (white wine is another story and a good thing I do not drink it either) so all is well here in Brentwood.

Originally Posted by rachel

Most foods and drinks are good for you in one way or another, in moderation.

[David]

Wine May Lower the Risk of a Rare Esophageal Cancer


By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: March 4, 2009

While millions of Americans suffer from heartburn and gastric reflux, only a small number develop more severe ailments that can lead to esophageal cancer. Scientists trying to understand what may protect against these conditions have identified an unlikely agent: wine.

Two studies published this month in the journal Gastroenterology suggest that people who drink wine, white or red, in moderation are less likely to develop conditions that may lead to esophageal adenocarcinoma, an uncommon cancer that has increased sharply in the United States over the past 30 years.

The reports are particularly surprising because alcohol intake is a well-established risk factor for the other main form of esophageal cancer, squamous cell carcinoma. Researchers noted the studies were preliminary.

In one study, researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., found that drinking a glass of wine a day was associated with a more than 50 percent reduction in the risk of developing Barrett’s esophagus, though there was no reduction in risk among adults who drank liquor or beer. Barrett’s esophagus, an erosion of the esophageal lining that can be caused by chronic heartburn or acid reflux, increases the odds of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma 30-fold to 40-fold.

In the second study, researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, reported that compared with patients who drank no wine, those drinking one glass of wine or more a month saw a drop of more than 50 percent in the risk of reflux esophagitis, an irritation often caused by chronic heartburn.

The two studies’ findings are consistent with those from an Australian report in Gastroenterology in December. That study found that drinking wine in moderation was linked to lower risks for both forms of the cancer.

“There is a lot of warranted skepticism about nutritional studies — one shows one thing, and one shows something else,” said Dr. Douglas Corley, a gastroenterologist and senior author of the Kaiser Permanente study. “But these are the first few studies that have looked at this, and they all find the same thing in three different populations in three different countries.”

But people who drink wine tend to come from higher income brackets and to be more educated than those who drink beer and liquor, experts said, and it is hard to know whether it is the wine or some other aspect of their lifestyle that protects their health.

“This is an exploratory study,” said Dr. Liam J. Murray, a senior author of the Irish study and a professor of cancer epidemiology at Queen’s University Belfast, “and my view is that further work needs to be done before we put too much weight on it.”

SOURCE

[sarienbarry]

Researchers from France observed in a study that red wine drinkers have increased HDL cholesterol, commonly referred to as the "good" cholesterol. This helps show some light on why red wine is believed to be protective against cardiovascular disease.
Researchers compared HDL cholesterol levels between 40 men who drink every now and then, those who are regular drinkers and those who are heavy drinkers. As alcohol consumption shot up, so did HDL levels. The researchers say this study supports many others that have shown, "an inverse relationship between regular and moderate alcohol consumption and the risk for myocardial infarction (heart attack)."
This latest study is one of a long line of research to support the benefits of moderate drinking on heart health. Similar to the others, this study leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Researchers say the molecular makeup of the HDL was different in wine drinkers, but yet to find the actual reason.
In addition to studying drinking habits, doctors reviewed nutrition data, smoking history, blood pressure, and physical activity levels. More studies will be done to further understand how all of these factors may influence heart health.

[bellerose]

I've always wanted to have a glass of wine, but can't seem to find a nice brand I can tolerate...

[toobdoow]

I don't drink a lot of wine and when I do drink it, I prefer the whites.

...however, one of the guys brought a gallon of a Red Rose to deer camp and I had a glass...and liked it.

On the way home I stopped and bought a gallon of it and was pleased with the price...12 bucks a gallon locally

Now, I know this doesn't make me a wine common-sewer, but I drink what I like.

Livingston Cellars Red Rose

I can handle a glass of this at supper (dinner for those of you north or west of the South).

Makes a pretty good Sangria or wine cooler too.

[Mad_Dog]

White whine... isn't that what San Francisco liberals are known for?

[Orin]

I prefer to get my relaxation through beer. Wine has always been too sour and fermenty for me; rotten fruit. Gussy it up with all the "chocolate this", "berry that", and "tannin whatever" you want, I can't get past the rotten fruit smell.

[FoundingFather]

I love me a good cabernet. I love the combination smell of the barrel and the fermented juice. The trick is to find one sufficiently aged and not so strong that it causes you to make a face when you take a drink.

Sterling has a lot of good ones that are smooth enough for a glass or two or three.

[Bemused]

Originally Posted by David

Let's face it. Red wine is good for you. In moderation. NY Times
SOURCE

The Claim: A Little Alcohol Can Help You Beat a Cold
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

THE FACTS

When it comes to quick remedies for colds, many people insist that a glass of brandy or a hot toddy — whiskey with hot water and lemon juice — is just what the doctor ordered.

It’s not difficult to see how mild inebriation might have the potential to relieve cold and flu symptoms, but so far no study has shown that alcohol has the ability to kill germs in the bloodstream or stop a cold in its tracks. And while alcohol may provide temporary relief, it can prolong symptoms by increasing dehydration.

Nonetheless, two large studies have found that although moderate drinking will not cure colds, it can help keep them at bay. One, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon in 1993, looked at 391 adults and found that resistance to colds increased with moderate drinking, except in smokers.

Then, in 2002, researchers in Spain followed 4,300 healthy adults, examining their habits and susceptibility to colds. The study, in The American Journal of Epidemiology, found no relationship between the incidence of colds and consumption of beer, spirits, Vitamin C or zinc. But drinking 8 to 14 glasses of wine per week, particularly red wine, was linked to as much as a 60 percent reduction in the risk of developing a cold. The scientists suspected this had something to do with the antioxidant properties of wine.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Alcohol will not help cure a cold, though moderate consumption may reduce susceptibility.

Source

Another opinion

[Orin]

What do they say about a little Purple Kush or Train Wreck?

[Bemused]

Originally Posted by Orin

What do they say about a little Purple Kush or Train Wreck?

I give up... What DO THEY say?