Drinking Wines

Throughout centuries, people have searched for a proverbial Fountain of Youth, a fountain whose water can actually slow down the aging process. From Juan Ponce de Le?n to the modern day seeker, the search for the Fountain of Youth, much like the fountain itself, springs eternal.

While this fountain?s location has proven elusive, it?s believed to be somewhere near Florida, causing hopeful searchers to leave no Cadillac unturned: as the Atlantic winds blow onto the shores, the sounds of ?here fountain fountain fountain? are often heard from afar.

The reason for this extensive hunt is simple: when it comes to life, everyone hopes to find an extension cord.

Though the Fountain of Youth hasn?t provided us with this extension - as its waters have yet to be packaged, labeled, and displayed in the vitamin aisles of the local market - there is something that may serve as a close second: red wine.

Red Wine Slows Down Aging
Most of us are aware of the health benefits of red wine. From lowering blood pressure to helping cardiovascular health, red wine is giving all sorts of diseases something to whine about. However, recent discovery has led scientists to believe that, in addition to increasing health, the consumption of red wine may single handedly decrease the mortality rate and slow the aging process: belly up to the bar and order a Merlot, with an added dash of lifespan.

Calorie Restriction
There are a lot of things that a person can do to increase the years they will live. From lowering cholesterol to working out on a daily basis, several practices work together to give the average person more years of living. Yet, nothing increases a human?s lifespan quite like the act of calorie restriction, limiting caloric intake to a minimum. Some researchers estimate that calorie restriction can increase lifespan by as many as 50 years.

However, from Alfredo sauce to zucchini bread, our world is a world that loves to eat. Because of this, restricting calories isn?t very feasible; we have a better chance at actually finding the Fountain of Youth than we do of not consuming the T-bone steak sitting on the dinner table, begging us to stick a fork in it. .

Taking into consideration the fact that humans aren?t likely to engage in caloric limitations, scientists began looking for a way that people could have their cake, and literally eat it too.

The Sirtuin 1 Gene
Calorie restriction activates the Sirtuin 1 Gene, a gene that is known to heavily influence the continued existence in all living cells. Once this gene is activated, cells go into survival mode, putting more effort into longevity. This ultimately, as cells fight harder to stay alive, increases lifespan.

However, calorie restriction, as scientists have discovered, is not the only thing that can activate the Sirtuin 1 Gene. Recent studies have found that red wine also possesses this talent. Due to the fact that red wine contains Resveratrol, a class of antibiotics produced by plants that activates the Sirtuin 1 Gene, drinking it can add years to life. With each glass of red wine consumed, a cell?s urge to exist becomes stronger, the body is filled with antioxidants, and Gloria Gaynor?s ?I will Survive? is heard, reverberating off the strands of DNA.

The Data Speaks
After discovering that Resveratrol lengthened the life of fruit flies and roundworms, Dr. David Sinclair and a team of Harvard researchers began to see if Resveratrol had the same affect on mice. While the concept of giving a red wine molecule to a group of mice may seem odd - leaving the mice inebriated and surrounded by relatives begging them not to get behind the wheel?of cheese - the study actually drew conclusions that could leave Dr. Sinclair and his team sitting next to Jonas Salk on the spectrum of important scientific discoveries.

The researchers found, after a 110 week study of mice placed on a high fat diet, that the mice who took Resveratrol lived longer than the mice who did not. Despite ingesting foods that were high in fat, the mice who took Resveratrol had a mortality rate of 32 percent, while the mice who didn?t take Resveratrol had a mortality rate of 50 percent.

The reasons for this, the researchers concluded, is that Resveratrol essentially copies calorie restriction, giving those who ingest it the same benefits of those who restrict their food intake. In sum, Resveratrol ignites the will to survive in the cells, rewarding the person who ingests it with a longer life.

Could it be the Same in People?
While mice - living an average of 2 years - were an ideal subject matter for the Resveratrol study, testing in people, because our lifespan is about 40 times that of a mouse, is not as convenient. Therefore, human testing has yet to be done. However, it?s highly theorized that a Resveratrol study would find a similar outcome, whether the test is performed on mice or men. . The main reason for this prediction is the French.

The French are a culture bent on poor eating - consuming foods high in fat and calories - and inactivity. Despite having a lifestyle that serves as a manual for a heart attack, heart disease is not an enemy of France. The majority of the French simply do not get heart disease. The reason for this is because they are a culture that consumes a lot of red wine. This red wine has proven to be the one variable that seems to enable them to sidestep death, allowing them, despites some vices, to live a great deal of years. In fact, in areas of France where wine is grown, citizens live 35 to 65 percent longer than citizens residing in a non-growing district.

How much Red Wine Should People Drink?
While this ?Fountain of Youth? discovery is great news for wine lovers, it has the potential to perpetuate the wrong idea, with some people locking themselves in a liquor store, grabbing a corkscrew, and drinking all the wine on the shelves in a quest to live forever. Like all of the benefits of red wine, the key is moderation.

Right now, it is recommended that people hoping to consume Resveratrol drink one or two glasses of red wine a day. Because the air can alter Reservatrol?s potency, it?s best to drink red wine that has been recently opened. While white wine has some Resveratrol, red wine has about ten times more. Along these lines, wines grown in cooler climates - such as New York - have more Resveratrol than wines grown in hot climates, such as Australia. Pinot Noir is believed to be among the wines with the highest levels.

While the Fountain of Youth may not have technically been found, this red wine discovery is allowing us to feel its mist. By igniting our cells’ will to survive and filling our body with life preserving antioxidants, red wine may slow down the aging process, allowing humans to stay younger and live longer than they ever thought possible.

Somewhere Juan Ponce de Le?n is smiling.

Jennifer Jordan is the senior editor at http://www.savoreachglass.com. With a vast knowledge of wine etiquette, she writes articles on everything from how to hold a glass of wine to how to hold your hair back after too many glasses. Ultimately, she writes her articles with the intention that readers will remember wine is fun and each glass of anything fun should always be savored.

Interest in wine?s health benefits in the last two decades may have been sparked by a desire to establish a reason for the so called ?French Paradox?. There is a where a lower incidence of heart disease is found in the French. The French have a diet rich in fat and it is rational to think this antagonistic diet would be incompatible with good health. The French are known to eat more beef, cheese and butter than their European neighbors. Several researchers concluded that along with their rich fatty foods they also have a significant intake of red wine when compared to other Europeans and even Westerners. Thus the door was open for many researchers to study the health effects of wine (especially red wine) as a possible solution to this quandary. There is research supported information that moderate red wine consumption (that is one glass for women and one to two for men) can protect you against heart disease, hypertension and cancer. It also has been shown to have a positive effect on cholesterol levels. Of course moderation is key here. This is certainly not an example of where a little is good a whole lot is better. Therefore, the medical community is very cautious to recommend routine use of red wine for obvious reasons.

Some studies in women regarding the consumption of alcohol and risk of breast cancer found an increase of this type of cancer in women who consume at least one drink daily. According to a report by the American Cancer Society in 2004 there was an increase of 30% in the death rate from breast cancer in women who would drink alcohol daily. This confounding information aside consumption of one or two drinks per day is associated with a reduction in risk of approximately 30 to 50 percent in coronary heart disease. Heart disease being the overwhelming number one killer of woman annually makes it the major target. So wine consumption has an overall positive effect on death rates in the female population.

The compounds responsible for the protective powers of wine are a class of compounds called antioxidants. Red wines contain several antioxidants the key isolate being the polyphenol compound called trans-Resveratrol or Res for short. Res is found in other fruit besides grapes including mulberries, raspberries and muscadine grapes (indigenous to the Americas). And in this particular grape Res is reported to be seven times as concentrated. Resveratrol is also encountered in peanuts and other nuts. Researchers at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Illinois found that Res has both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. A paper published by the UNC researchers in 2000 in the journal Cancer Research reports that Res inhibits the activity of a protein called NF-kappa B which attaches to DNA inside human cells. This protein acts like a switch turning certain genes on and off. Cancer cells propagate and continue to survive by means of NF-kappa B and thus under controlled settings researcher introduce Res which turns off this protein and thus causes the death (apoptosis) of cancer cells.

In 1992 Harvard Medical School researchers included moderate alcohol consumption as one of eight ways to reduce coronary heart disease risk. The cardioprotective effect is attributed to the antioxidants found in wine grape skins and seeds. These antioxidants (flavonoids) are found in higher concentration in red as opposed to white wine. As part of the red wine making process grape skins, stems and seeds are kept in contact with the juice for a long period of time imparting not only the ?red? color but also these health-benefiting flavonoids. It should also be noted that certain flavonoids found in oak wood are conveyed, as many red wine spends much time ?aging? in oak barrels.

Coronary heart disease reduction by Res and other antioxidant flavonoids occur in part due to a reduction in the production of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and the increase of the good high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). Additionally these agents reduce blood-clotting factors limiting thrombus from causing ?clots? in the coronary arteries. Some of these properties may be attributed to the fact that Res has mild estrogenic properties and estrogens as a class of hormones seem to be cardioprotective.

Still another study indicated that Resveratrol aided in the formation of nerve cells. There are those experts that believe this may be helpful in the treatment of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer?s and Parkinson?s in the near future. There is even one study out there claiming that daily moderate wine consumption will result in weight loss.

Not all wines are created equally. Studies from the University of California at Davis conducted studies on several varietals. They determined that higher concentrations of flavonoids are present in Cabernet Sauvignon, followed by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir grapes. Merlot and Red Zinfandels have far fewer flavonoids. Whites once again came out short, as the bigger bolder more tannic wines seemed best for high flavonoid yields.

Resveratrol has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries in the form of a plant called Polygonum cuspidatum for the treatment of liver and heart conditions. Why take a bitter herb when you can sip a fine wine?

According to recent statistics, year 2002 wine volume in the United States was approximately 595 million gallons. Up 34 million gallons of annual wine production when compared to 2001 records and the trend continues. California remains the largest wine producing state in the US with 90 percent coming from this state alone.

With wine sales in the United State reaching $21.1 billion in 2002, it has helped push the US to fourth in world wine production and third in consumption. The Greek philosopher Plato is quoted as saying Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man. And this may be true beyond his imagination given the stated health benefits. The questions remains, with the increased consumption in recent years, will it have a noticeable impact on the health of Americans? Cheers.

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References: (upon request to author at jpsaleeby@aol.com)

JP Saleeby, MD is co-director of the Emergency Department at LRMC in Hinesville, GA. He is a strong advocate of nutritional medicine and an oneophile of sort founding the Savannah Wine Club. He holds faculty position at GSU in Statesboro, GA, lecturing graduate nurse practitioners. He also maintains a blog at http://www.docsaleeby.blogspot.com and http://www.members.aol.com/savannahwine. To email use jpsaleeby@aol.com.

Good news! A recent study suggested that resveratrol, a red wine compound, may extend our life.

The study was conducted on fries and worms to see if resveratrol can extend life in these creatures. Previous studies suggested that yeast life can be extended with resveratrol.

It was found that worms and fires fed resveratrol live 30% longer than those that were not fed resveratrol.

Fries and humans share many biological processes. Therefore, there is a chance this red wine compound may also extend life in humans.

Previous studies have found that resveratrol is protective against heart diseases largely due to the antioxidative properties of this compound.

However, the current finding, life-extension with resveratrol, may not be due to its antioxidative properties. Rather, resveratrol may act just like calorie-restriction that activates proteins called sirtuins similar to sir2. Sir2 is an important protein that is present in many animals and participate in the aging regulations.

More good news with resveratrol! Resveratrol does not have any negative impact on the fertility while calorie-restriction may cause infertility. Actually, resveratrol boosts the fertility of fries.

The researchers plan to continue their work on mice. If they can duplicate the same results in mice, resveratrol can be a wonder chemical that can help us extend our life to certain degree.

This study was done by David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues at the University of Connecticut and Brown University in Rhode Island. The study was published in the July 13 issue of journal Nature.

About The Author

John Roberts is a freelance writer for foodconsumer.com

Is wine good for you? The answer is, ?Yes!? There?s lots of research providing proof that there really are health benefits from drinking wine.

Flavonoids from the skins and seeks of red grapes are the key to wine being good for you. These flavonoids lower your risk of coronary heart disease by reducing your LDL or bad cholesterol levels. At the same time these flavonoids actually increase your HDL or good cholesterol levels and decrease the likelihood of blood clotting.

Scientists believe that there may be other health benefits from red wine. A recent study discovered that an antioxidant in the skins of red grapes, called resveratrol, may inhibit the growth of tumors in some cancers. It?s possible that resveratrol can help treat Alzheimer?s and Parkinson?s as well and new studies are on the way.

Are some wines better for you than others? Again, the answer is, ?Yes!? Researchers at University of California at Davis have concluded that full-bodied dry red wines contain the highest levels of flavonoids and provide the greatest benefits. The number one wine for supplying the most flavonoids is Cabernet Sauvignon with Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir also ranking highly. Sweeter wines and white wines have less flavonoids and are less beneficial.

How much should you drink? Moderation is the key. Women should drink 4 ounces of red wine daily with a meal and men 4-8 ounces.

Pour yourself a glass of red wine and drink to your health. Cheers!

Kathy Howe and her husband, Steve, spend much of their free time tasting and enjoying wine. Their interest in wine is reflected in their Web Site, http://www.cheers2wine.com ? a Comprehensive Guide to the California Wine Country.