One question I’m asked all the time is “is wine good for you?” The simple answer is “yes”, with obvious caveats attached.
Wine and Health – Some Historical Background
Wine and its benefits have over 450 mentions in the Bible. Earlier references go as far back as Ancient Egypt and the Sumerians. Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.) was one of its more interesting earlier advocates. He described it as “a thing marvelously suited to man if, in health as in sickness, it is administered in accordance with the individual constitution”. He recommended white wine as cure for edema, as well as claiming a beneficial effect on the stomach. Pliny in “Natural History” talks of the medicinal effects of the vine. “Wine in itself is a remedy ; it nourishes the blood of man”. He saw wine as an antidote to poison. This included snake bites and treating the after-effects of poisonous mushrooms. Cornelius Celsus documented Roman medicine in detail in the early first century AD, and recommended wine to complement diets drawn up to combat anaemia. The Roman physician Galen, over a century later, discovered more benefits. Wine appeared to be the most effective way of disinfecting the wounds of gladiators.
Now we can fast forward to the middle ages. Land-owning Burgundy monasteries such as Cluny and Citeaux produced wine to celebrate Mass. Vinestock symbolized resurrection through renewing its greenery each year. The wine itself equated to the blood of Christ. Inspired, they went on to develop winemaking techniques, and the wine developed commercial value. Saint Benedict of Aniane (his order owned Cluny) recommended wine drinking with meals. One “hemin” or ¼ litre was the suggested dose. The aim, roughly translated, was to keep the monks “in top form”.
We now move onto the renaissance period. The illustrious medical school of Salerno near Naples claimed it rejuvenated the aged. The renowned Dutch Humanist Erasmus drunk Beaune wine to shake up his digestion. Ambroise Paré, surgeon to the French court in the late 16th Century, applied red wine to wounds of soldiers. Médoc wines were already thought to have antibiotic properties. The Pharmacopoeia of 1677 recommended a mixture of oil and wine to clean wounds. Later publications recommended wholly wine based cures. These generally included maceration of medicinal plants corresponding to different ailments. Louis XIV’s physician advised him to replace Burgundy with Champagne to treat gout. At the end of his life, Louis, suffering from a gangrenous infection, was bathed in wine-based infusions. Unsurprisingly this didn’t save him and he soon passed away.
Come the 19th Century, Pasteur wrote a book “Etudes sur le Vin” in which he approved of wine’s cleansing properties. In 1959, the Bordeaux professor Masquelier confirmed the antibiotic properties of red wine and its effect on arteriosclerosis.
Wine, Digestion and Metabolism
In the Bible, Saint Paul gives this sage advice to one of his disciples. “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses”. His logic was sound. Swallowing 60 to 100 grams of wine results in the body secreting 100 to 120 grams of liquid containing around 1g of free hydrochloric acid. This state of acidity helps in the assimilation of proteins. Wine also supplies B-complex vitamins including riboflavin and pantothenic acid, which assist in metabolising proteins and carbohydrates. For sufferers of heartburn, wines chosen should be relatively low in acidity and rich in calcium. Anjou or Saumurois are suggestions of the Frenchman Dr. E. Maury in his 1989 publication “The Medicinal Benefits of Wine Drinking”. He says Medoc wines help give the stomach wall increased elasticity and aid digestion. This is through their richness in iron, phosphates and tannin. Sweet white wines can also assist in digestion through increasing the volume of bile secretion from the gall bladder.
Some of Maury’s findings are more debatable. He divides people into four temperamental categories. One can be Sanguine [air], Nervous [earth], Bilious [fire] or Lymphatic [water]. He recommends corresponding wines for each character type. He also recommends no more than one litre of wine (10% strength) a day for men, and half of that for women. He also dislikes tap water to an amusing degree. Drinking it with a meal is “an unfortunate error in taste and a grave dietary error, as it is one of the causes of dyspepsia. Relying on this tasteless beverage affects the elasticity of the stomach cavity and changes the catalytic value [the ability to break down foods] of the digestive juices, apart from its negative influence at a psychological level which, in the habitual water drinker, may encourage a tendency to pessimism and introspection”.
Wine is a food in itself. It contains a mixture of around 600 components including sugar, amino-acids, mineral salts, and proteins. Seen as a food, wine can reduce the body’s need for carbohydrates, which brings into focus the role wine can play in type-2 diabetes. Studies suggest that reservatrol in wine can prevent insulin resistance in cases where a patient’s body reacts less than usual to insulin, thereby raising blood sugar levels to above a healthy norm. In healthy patients it can help prevent type-2 diabetes. Studies have also shown that reservatrol can affect the metabolism in a positive way in cases of obesity. This is through activating what is knows as a SIRT1 gene. It is worth noting that combined with the alcohol some of these effects will be partially toned down.
Wine and Circulation
Reservatrol is one of hundreds of types of phenolic compounds found in wine, and is particularly prevalent in red wine. It is thought to lower the risk of cancer and heart disease, and is also present in white wine, rose and champagne in lower quantities than with reds. It reduces heart inflammation through lowering the level inflammatory blood chemicals or cytokines. This lowers “bad” cholesterol, the type which creates artery-blocking plaques. At the same time it increases “good” cholesterol which helps remove them.
Wine can also prevent the formation of lethal blood clots through the anticoagulant effect of alcohol. Alcohol reduces the “stickiness” of platelets that would otherwise stick together, along with the amount of fibrous protein that helps bind them together. Recent research also connects reservatrol with slowing down the lung ageing process and helping to combat emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
Polyphenols in wine have received plenty of press as regards beneficial effects on blood pressure. Studies suggest that they affect levels of nitric oxide in the blood. This helps blood vessels to relax thereby lowering pressure. The alcohol acts too as a blood thinner, which can help prevent strokes.
Wine and Other Ailments
Beyond polyphenols, recent studies suggest that the silicone content of wine (Côtes du Rhône is notably high in silicon salts) may help increase bone strength. This leads to potential use in treatment of osteoporosis and other bone-related conditions. As well as silicone, wine from certain regions (e.g. Ventoux) contains raised levels of calcium phosphate, iron oxides and manganese. These are elements necessary for the remineralising of bone tissue. Copper, manganese, selenium and zinc have antioxidant properties too. Some wines are high in magnesium salts. Through helping to transport phosphorus, they assist in the calcifying of bone tissue.
Another interesting case is that of herpes. US research suggests that the antioxidants from the wine’s reservatrol can help control symptoms. This is through their positive effect on the immune system. Being applied to sores could also reduce the chances of it infecting others. Since the year 2000 when this first came to light, there doesn’t seem to have been much further testing done.
Wine has useful antibacterial benefits for stomach illnesses. Peptic ulcers as well as stomach cancer and gastritis are connected with a bacterium named Helicobacter Pylori. Moderate wine drinkers are less likely to have this present than non-drinkers. Gallstones are another medical ailment that seems to be less likely amongst moderate wine drinkers. Being partly composed of cholesterol, this could be a side-effect of reservatrol and its lowering of “bad” cholesterol.
Another fascinating study, carried out in the US in 1998, showed that the visual cells of (moderate) wine-drinkers were in markedly better condition than those of non-drinkers and drinkers of spirits and beer. Jancis Robinson suggests the antioxidant and anticoagulant properties of wine as a possible cause, and I’m not currently inclined to disagree.
Conclusions
To conclude, wine in moderation is very likely to be good for you! I could talk more the dangers of excess and the reactions that histamines and sulphites in wines can cause, but that’s just not fun. So I won’t. Neither will I directly endorse Dr. Maury’s litre-a-day recommendation, that may truly be the result of imbibing to excess.