It’s The Alcohol, Stupid! Looking At The Wine Industry’s Bone-Headed Fumble

The wine industry’s lack of an organized and sustained effort to correct mistakes and misconceptions in the press means that an increasing number of people believe that the cardioprotective effects of moderate alcohol consumption can be had without alcohol consumption.

Science does not support that fact.

Yet, the wine industry — especially red wine producers — have fumbled the issue and let the antioxidant, resveratrol train roll on until the general public believes that the beneficial effects can come in a magic pill.

Wrong.

In fact, this story in today’s news clearly indicates that that in order to get any sort of benefit from red wine antioxidants, a person would have to drink 667 bottles per day. Hardly moderate consumption, that.

The truth is, it’s the alcohol. According to hundreds of top-quality, peer-reviewed research papers from the world’s best universities and medical schools, wine may or may not (and probably doesn’t) have an edge over beer and spirits. Rather, it’s the alcohol consumed in moderation and preferably with food that accounts for the longer lives lived by smart imbibers. Spirits and beer tend to be binged more often than wine and that cultural difference may account for some difference seen in mortality rates among the different beveragers.

Indeed, very little has changed since I wrote the best-selling book on the topic: The French Paradox & Beyond.

Presented below, chapter eight of that book.

Wine, Beer Or Spirits: Is There A Difference?

Wine, especially red wine, seems to have an edge in reducing moderate drinkers’ risks of having a heart attack, although the evidence is not yet conclusive.

Even though wine has the advantage in a majority of studies which investigated people’s beverage preferences, some research shows no differences in risk reduction among drinkers of wine, beer or spirits. Some key studies have not segregated the cardio-protective effects according to beverage types.

Dr. Curtis Ellison, Chief of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Medicine, wrote in the September 1990 issue of Epidemiology that, “It is still unclear what kind of alcoholic beverage one needs to drink to provide these beneficial effects. The majority of studies in which the type of alcoholic beverage is consumed was reported indicate that wine is the preferable beverage, although spirits also produce a reduction in cardiovascular disease rates. Although some studies have demonstrated a protective effect of beer, many have shown it to have a smaller effect on cardiovascular mortality than other alcoholic beverages.”

However, data are accumulating from three different types of studies that indicate that wine does, indeed, offer a greater degree of decreased heart attack risk than the other beer or spirits.

A.S. St. Leger and his team at the British Medical Research Council’s Epidemiological Unit in Cardiff found, in their studies of factors associated with cardiac mortality in 18 developed countries, “wine appears to account for the entire alcohol effect.”

St. Leger studied the effects of alcohol and fat consumption, cigarette smoking, gross national product, access to health care, population density and many other factors. He found the lowest death rates from Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) in countries with the highest per capita wine consumption.

“By far the most interesting result to emerge from our analysis was the strong, specific association [decrease] between IHD deaths and alcohol consumption, more particularly with wine. This was not explained away by fat consumption… or any of the other variables we examined.”

Supporting the St. Leger team’s results are two studies conducted at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, Calif. by Dr. Arthur K. Klatsky, M.D., Dr. Gary D. Friedman, M.D., and Mary Ann Armstrong, MA. One study, published in the Nov. 15, 1990 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, indicated that moderate consumers of wine, compared to abstainers, had a 50 percent lower risk of dying of a heart attack and a 20 percent lower risk of dying of all causes. Beer drinkers reduced their heart attack risk by 30 percent and overall death risk by 10 percent. Spirits drinkers, while reducing their heart attack risk by 40 percent, showed the same overall death rate as abstainers.

An earlier study by the same team, published in the Oct. 1, 1986 American Journal of Cardiology found the risk of being hospitalized for coronary artery disease was 11 percent lower for wine drinkers than for beer or spirits drinkers.

Even France, which most Americans associate with wine drinking, shows regional differences. The lowest death rate, from all causes, is in the south and in the wine-producing regions where wine consumption is highest. The spirits drinking regions in the west and the beer-drinking regions in the northeast show less cardio-protection and a higher cirrhosis rate.

Why The Difference?

Some studies suggest that wine is more protective because of the way in which it is consumed. “Wine consumption is usually associated with the consumption of food whereas beer and spirits are more likely to be consumed at times other than when food is served,” said Dr. Ellison.

Consuming any alcoholic beverage with food, especially meals, will slow down the absorption of alcohol and help prevent the BAC from peaking quickly.

Dr. Ellison has also suggested that of the three types of beverage, wine is the least likely to be used in binges which produce very high blood alcohol levels that are harmful. Other researchers have said that income or other socioeconomic factors may favor wine drinkers.

However, the St. Leger study did not find such linkages. Indeed, studies on rabbits (genetically almost identical and certainly a class-less population) found that, compared with a group fed no alcohol, rabbits consuming red wine had 60 percent fewer atherosclerotic lesions in their coronary arteries. Rabbits (see graph, Chapter 1) consuming white wine had 33 percent less; those consuming pure ethanol and whiskey showed 25 and 16 percent reductions respectively. Those consuming beer had the same number of lesions.

Therefore, the rabbit study indicates there is a difference among alcoholic beverages; something other than socioeconomic factors is responsible.

“Wines are rich in aromatic compounds and other trace components which give them their distinct character and it may be to them that we should look for the protective effect,” said the St. Leger research team.

They may be right. In 1991, two researchers at Cornell University, Evan Siemann and Leroy Creasy, discovered a compound in wines — especially red wines — that lowers fats and cholesterol in the blood and decreases the tendency of blood platelets to clot.

The substance, Resveratrol, is produced naturally by grape vines to protect themselves against fungus attacks. Coincidentally, resveratrol has been identified as an active ingredient in “Kojo-Kon,” a Chinese and Japanese folk medicine used to treat atherosclerosis.

Resveratrol is present in grape skins and extracted during the fermentation process. Because red wines are usually fermented in contact with the skins longer than white wines, they tend to have higher levels of resveratrol.

In addition, grapes grown in areas more subject to fungal infection (such as damp regions like France) and those grown organically without artificial fungicides are more likely to have higher levels. The Cornell study also discovered that some winemaking techniques, used to make wine crystal clear, may remove the resveratrol. Unfiltered, unfined wines (an increasingly popular style which leaves a slightly cloudy appearance) may, therefore, have higher resveratrol concentrations.

Creasy cautions against choosing a wine selection based on this first study because they did not have as many different samples of wine as they needed.

He said he has received a number of letters expressing the American “quick-fix” attitude: when, the writers ask, will resveratrol be available in a pill. Probably never. Creasy — like most wine/health researchers — says that wine is to be enjoyed, not taken as medicine.