Although I’ve written several entries on the health benefits of wine consumption because of its resveratrol content, I hope the posts did not come across as promoting excessive alcohol consumption. I’d like to take this opportunity that while there are scientific evidence supporting the so-called French paradox, most suggest that moderate regular wine consumption is most beneficial. What does moderate mean? One glass? Two glasses? How big a glass?

And what about for those who are watching their alcohol consumption? The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) has published Alcohol Facts, a side-by-side comparison of the alcohol, calorie and carbohydrate content per serving of the top 26 domestic and imported alcoholic beverage brands sold in the US. According to their press release:

Designed to help consumers follow the Dietary Guidelines’ advice that men limit their consumption to two drinks a day and that women restrict their consumption to one drink per day, Alcohol Facts further explains what constitutes a “standard drink” — 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine and 1.5 ounces of 80-proof (40%) distilled spirits. According to the Dietary Guidelines, these amounts represent moderate drinking. Public health officials warn that consuming too much alcohol contributes to dependence, obesity and a range of diseases, such as liver cirrhosis and cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract.

Want to know how much alcohol is in that bottle of Guinness or glass of Merlot? Click the image above to see a larger version, or download the poster here.

Previous studies have already demonstrated in animal trials that resveratrol improves health and longevity. New data confirms that resveratrol does improve health and possibly the quality of life, particularly in obese test animals.

In addition to cardiovascular function, the scientists found resveratrol to have a variety of positive effects on other age-related problems in mice:

• Treated mice tended to have better bone health, as measured by thickness, volume, mineral content and density, and bending stiffness compared to the non-treated control group.
• At 30 months of age, resveratrol-treated mice were found to have reduced cataract formation, a condition found to increase with age in control-group mice.
• Resveratrol enhanced balance and motor coordination in aged animals. Scientists found significant improvement in performance at 21 and 24 months versus 15 months in the resveratrol-treated mice but not in the untreated mice.
• Resveratrol partially mimicked the effects of dietary restriction on the gene expression profiles of liver, skeletal muscle and adipose (fatty) tissue in mice.
• Along with determining the effect of resveratrol on the health of mice, scientists also studied the effect of resveratrol on longevity.

What is new in this study, however, is that the data suggest that resveratrol did NOT affect the lifespan of animals that were on a standard diet and were therefore not obese. It seems that resveratrol extended the lifespan of obese animals by improving their cardiovascular health and slowing down other age-related decline.

These findings have been published in the July 3, 2008 issue of Cell Metabolism.

Photo Credit: woodsy via stock.xchng

A new animal study indicates that low doses of resveratrol, an antioxidant compound naturally found in grapes, pomegranates, red wine among others, can potentially boost the quality of life in old age by improving heart health. The effects of resveratrol seems to mimic that of caloric restriction, which involves keeping to 20 to 30 percent less calories than a typical diet. Caloric restriction is believed to be effective in extending lifespan by reducing cellular stress response.

In this study, the researchers compared the genetic responses of animals to either restricted diets or normal diets including small doses of resveratrol, and found that resveratrol had virtually the same effects as restricted diets.

In the heart, for example, there are at least 1,029 genes whose functions change with age. In animals on restricted diets, 90 percent of those heart genes experienced alterations in gene expression, while low doses of resveratrol thwarted age-related change in 92 percent. The new findings, say the study’s authors, reveal how red wine’s special ingredient helps keep the heart young.

In short, the authors note that a glass of wine or food or supplements containing even small doses of resveratrol are likely to help stave off cardiac aging.

The researchers are planning a phase 1 clinical trial to begin this summer to further explore the effects of resveratrol on memory, physical performance, inflammation and oxidative damage in elderly individuals.

Wine consumption has already been documented many times to help reduce the risks of Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. The health benefit is believed to be an effect of a compound called resveratrol, found in grape skin and seed.

But what if you’re a teetotaler? Or are perhaps taking other medications that are contra-indicated with alcohol? Or simply steering away from alcoholic drinks? A new study shows that a nutritional supplement containing grape seed extract may work just as well.

“Meganatural AZ grape seed extracts significantly reduced Alzheimer’s disease - type cognitive deterioration in the Alzheimer’ disease mice through mechanisms that prevents the formation of a more complex form of a molecule known as amyloid in the brain,” said Dr. Pasinetti. “The implications of these studies, however, are not limited to patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, amyloid is present in everyone’s brain and whenever it comes together in a more complex structure it makes the brain to function less efficiently like in Alzheimer’ disease. As a result, Meganatural AZ compounds’ ability to inhibit the formation of such ‘more complex’ amyloid structures suggests that Meganatural AZ from red grapes might even help prevent memory loss in people that did not yet developed Alzheimer’s disease. “

Note that this study has been performed on animal models. I hope they confirm their findings on humans, before my memory completely fails. Until then, it’s wine and other antioxidants for me, then!

In a long-term population study of about 1,500 Swedish women, researchers found out further evidence that there is a something in wine that protects then from suffering from dementia.

The findings are based on 1,458 women who were included in the so-called Population Study of Women from 1968. When they were examined by physicians they were asked to report how often they drank wine, beer, and liquor by selecting from seven categories on a scale from ‘never’ to ‘daily.’ The researchers know nothing about how much they drank on each occasion, or how correct the estimates were. For each beverage the women reported having drunk more than once a month, they were classified as a consumer of that particular beverage.

Thirty-four years after the first study, 162 women had been diagnosed with dementia. The results show that among those women who reported that they drank wine a considerably lower proportion suffered from dementia, whereas this correlation was not found among those who had reported that they regularly drank beer or liquor.

“The group that had the lowest proportion of dementia were those who had reported that the only alcohol they drank was wine,” says Professor Lauren Lissner, who directs the study in collaboration with Professor Ingmar Skoog, both with the Sahgrenska Academy.

Considering other laboratory studies made on the correlation between wine consumption and dementia, aging, and other neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, I would suspect the antioxidant compounds such as resveratrol would be responsible for these observations.