The Winedoctor

[the-winedoctor]

WINE AND HEAL TH - IS IT THE ALCOHOL OR IS IT THE WINE?

By Dr. Philip Norrie, MBBS,MA,MSc,MSocSc(Hons),PhD,MD

"Beer is made by man - wine is made by God" Martin Luther (1483-1546 Scholar and Religious Reformer)

Man has been consuming wine for about 9,500 years, beer for about 6,000 years and spirits for about 3,000 years. Wine is man's oldest medicine, having been used as such by the medical profession for over 5,000 years.

The cultivation of grapes and the making of wine may have also contributed to the beginnings of civilization. Nine to ten thousand years ago, the domestication of animals and the cultivation of cereals took place in the Fertile Crescent, which stretched from Israel and Jordan in the west, to Iran's Zagros Mountains in the east. These are traditionally thought to be the precipitants of the formation of the first food producing communities (instead of being nomadic communities), which led to the creation of settlements and towns. The cultivation of the vine, and the need to stay in one place for long periods of time to make wine, could also be argued as another influence or cause for the establishment of the earliest static communities; because the first wine making was occurring at the same time just to the north, in nearby Georgia. Wine was also being made at this time from indigenous grapes, hawthorn fruit and rice in Jiahu, a Yellow River valley settlement in northern China. This wine may even predate the earliest Middle Eastern wines.

Wine should be regarded as a food. Historically it has been regarded as such and has been an integral part of the healthful Mediterranean diet for thousands of years. Wine also has important religious connections, being used to represent the blood of Christ in holy communion.

Dr. Maynard Amerine, Professor Emeritus of Oenology and Viticulture at the University of California at Davis described wine as "a chemical symphony composed of ethylalcohol, several other alcohols, sugar, other carbohydrates, polyphenols, aldehydates, ketones and pigments, with half a dozen vitamins, fifteen to twenty minerals more than twenty-two organic acids and other things that have not yet been identified"(!)

A full table of wine's composition by Dr. Bryce Rankine, former Dean of the Faculty of Oenology at Roseworthy Agricultural College, follows at the end of this paper (2)

Professor Walter Willett, Chairman of Harvard University's Department of Nutrition has stated "Wine..... can't be forgotten as an important part of the Mediterranean diet"(3)

Professor Curtis Ellison, Head of Epidemiology at Boston University says "a Mediterranean diet, high in fruit, vegetables and grains, also typically includes one or two glasses of wine per day"(4)

 Australia's Dr. William Lennox Cleland, Medical Superintendent at the Glenside (psychiatric) Hospital in Adelaide thought of wine as a food when he addressed the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society on 27/8/1880 with a paper titled "Some remarks upon wine as a food and its product ion"

 " The centuries-old belief that wine used with meals is an aid to nutrition has been confirmed by research project at the University of California in Berkeley.

In the first such study ever made a liter of Zinfandel wine or a liter of an equivalent (11.5 percent) aqueous solution of ethanol were fed daily with a controlled isocaloric diet to six healthy young adult males while their feces, urine, and sweat were collected and analyzed.

The results showed that all of the subjects had absorbed from their diet significantly more of such nutrients as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and zinc after taking the wine than after taking the alcohol solution.

Equally significant was that when dealcoholized wine and deionized water were substituted for the wine and for the alcohol solution during part of the 75-day study, the results were similar. Significantly greater absorption of nutrients was found after the dealcoholized wine than after the water" .(5 )

Wine should also be regarded as separate from other alcohol containing beverages because wine is unique in that it is the only alcoholic beverage to not only contain alcohol but also nature ' s most potent antioxidants namely resveratrol, quercitin and eipcatechin and wine has the best mode of consumption because it is usually sipped slowly over a long period of time accompanying a meal, whereas beer and spirits do not contain these potent antioxidants and are usually consumed on an empty stomach thus greatly increasing their alcohol's absorption rate.

The main components that give wine its health benefits are alcohol and the polyphenol antioxidants. Alcohol is responsible for reduced clot formation (by increased fibrinolysis, reduced fibrinogen and reduced platelet aggregation), and raised good cholesterol (HDL) levels - all of which help reduce vascular disease.   The antioxidants are responsible for the rest of the health benefits of wine such as lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) levels, preventing bad cholesterol ' s incorporation in the vessel wall to form plaque (because LDL has to be oxidised to perform this function), stabilising plaque because the antioxidants reduce plaque inflammation which makes the plaque rupture, aid blood vessel walls to be more mobile thus helping them expand during heart contractions or systole and reducing damage to DNA, which can trigger cancer formation.

As Louis Pastuer stated wine is also "the most healthful and hygienic of all beverages". This has been shown very clearly by the Copenhagen City Heart Study which was the first study ever to compare the death from all causes rates of beer, wine and spirits. It is a very robust study being large in size with 19,220 participants, long in duration having started in 1976 and involving both men and women. Dr. Marten Gronbaek the study's director summed up the findings thus: -

" Low to moderate intake of wine is associated with lower mortality- up to 50% - from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and other causes. Similar intake of spirits implied an increased risk - up to 34% - while beer drinking did not affect mortality"(6) Later follow-ups and reviews of this study have reconfirmed and re-enforced wines significant health benefits and difference to beer and spirits from a health benefit point of view.

The Zutphen Study in the Netherlands is another study that shows wine is different to the other forms of alcohol. In this study , 1,373 men born between 1900 and 1920 were examined several times from 1960 to 2000. The study showed that long term alcohol consumption of 20 gms/day increased life expectancy compared to abstainers by 2 ½ years on average due to reduced cerebrovascular , cardiovascular and all cause mentality; while long term wine consumption increased life expectancy compared to abstainers by 5 years on average.

Another study has also shown wine is not only healthful but also different to others forms of alcohol. " In a study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina and published in the March 2008 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, researchers found that middle-aged non-drinkers who began consuming moderate amounts of alcohol saw an immediate benefit of lower cardiac disease morbidity with no change in mortality after four years.

Studying 7,697 people between 45 and 64 who were non-drinkers and who were participating in the Atherosclerosis risk in Communities (ARIC) study over a 10 year period, the authors found that 6% began moderate alcohol consumption (1 drink per day or fewer for women and 2 drinks per day or fewer for men) during the follow-up period. After 4 years of follow-up, new moderate drinkers had a 38% lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease than did their non-drinking counterparts. Even after adjusting for physical activity, Body Mass Index, demographic and cardiac risk factors, this difference persisted.

The study also identified a subset of new drinkers who consumed only wine.

When comparing non-drinkers to wine-only drinkers, drinkers of other types of alcohol, and heavy drinkers , the wine-only drinkers had the most significant reduction in cardiovascular events. Drinkers of other types of alcohol also had an advantage over non-drinkers, but the difference did not reach statistical significance".(8)

So the Copenhagen City Heart Study, the Zutphen Study and the ARIC Study are robust long term longitudinal studies that prove wine is different and better than the other forms of alcohol, from a health point of view.

Why is this so? A 34 year long follow-up study of 1,462 women in Goteborg , Sweden comparing the effect of beer, wine and spirits on the incidence of dementia in these women, showed women who consumed wine only had the lowest rate of dementia. " Results show that wine and spirits displayed opposing associations with dementia.

Because a protective effect was not seen for the other beverages, at least part of the association for wine may be explained by components other than ethanol". (9) The antioxidants (polyphenals) which are only in wine are five times more potent than the standard benchmark antioxidants VitC and Vit E, plateauing at 100% antioxidant activity after a few glasses and these antioxidants reduce insulin resistance thus help to significantly reduce diabetes, block damage being done to DNA in our cell nuclei thus reduce cancer and increase the activity of MAP kinase in the brain and reduce cerebral vascular disease thus help reduce dementia by up to 80% (an incredible figure) (10)

Antioxidants, especially resveratrol in wine, stimulate a nerve enzyme called Mitogen Activated Protein (MAP) kinase which stimulates nerve cells and helps them regenerate their dendrites or nerve interconnections . Thus Dr. Alberto Bertelli from University of Milan, the world authority on the subject states "By daily reinforcing these contacts we can prevent neurodegeneration" (Such as dementia and Parkinson' s disease).

The Copenhagen City Heart Study not only looked at vascular disease incidence and risk factors but it also revealed a lot of other medical information as well such the effect of the amount and type of alcohol on the risk of dementia. The researchers concluded " ... .. . ....... intake of wine is associated with a lower risk of dementia....... suggest that certain substances in wine may reduce the occurrence of dementia " .(11)

Free Radicals are the poisonous waste products from our metabolism which cause biological havoc to our bodies. The antioxidants from wine neutralize the effect of these Free Radicals, thus protecting our bodies from degeneration and aging i.e. cytoprotection or preventing cell death.

Macular Degeneration causes blindness in 30% of all people over the age of 65 (that is a lot of blindness). It cannot be treated once it is established, but it can be prevented and the only thing that helps prevent it is consuming wine in moderation which reduces the Macular Degeneration rate by up to 34% (12)

The biggest health benefit from consuming wine in moderation daily though comes from the up to 50% reduction in vascular disease. This is not only coronary heart disease but the whole vascular tree to include the brain (strokes), aorta (aneursyms), veins (DVT) and kidneys (50% of renal failure is due to vascular disease). Vascular disease is the biggest cause of death in our society accounting for about half of all deaths.

Again studies have shown a difference between wine and other alcoholic beverages. One good example is the meta-analysis of 26 studies on the relationship between wine and beer consumption and vascular disease carried out by an Italian research group in 2002. They concluded "These findings show evidence of a significant inverse association between light-to-moderate wine consumption and vascular risk.  A similar, although smaller association was also apparent in beer consumption studies. The latter finding, however, is difficult to interpret because no meaningful relationship could be found between different amounts of beer intake and vascular risk".(13)

Latest medical research  is showing  that vascular  disease  is a  chronic inflammatory disease , like rheumatoid arthritis , involving the internal lining of the vessel wall called the endothelium. Thus the new focus of research now is emphasizing the anti inflammatory effect on the endothelium to prevent rupture of atherosclerotic plaque and subsequent clotting that results in the obstruction of the blood vessel and death of the tissue supplied by that vessel. The antioxidants in wine significantly reduce this inflammation and clotting, thus reducing vascular disease deaths by up to 50%. This is a whole new exciting area of benefit and role for wine ' s antioxidants, not only involving complementary antioxidant mechanisms but also new alternative biological mechanisms for wine's polyphenols.

Normally bad cholesterol (LDL) is oxidised and then incorporated into the vessel wall to form atherosclerotic plaque which eventually swells up , then ruptures.  This rupture is closed off by clot which is the final event that causes an occlusion of the vessel. Now the endothelial inflammation theory explains why someone can have a large stable, full of scar tissue binding it together, plaque for decades  which does not  rupture and someone else can have a small but unstable or inflamed plaque , which does rupture at an early age and kills them. As mentioned earlier the anti-oxidants in wine help reduce vascular disease by five different mechanisms .

One of these anti-oxidants has an extra vital role to play and is another point of difference between wine and other alcoholic beverages; and would help to explain the results of the Zutphen study which showed that wine drinkers lived the longest.

Professor David Sinclair; a fellow Australian also from Sydney's northern suburbs and a fellow graduate from the University of NSW (he gained his PhD there and I gained my medical degree) from the Anti-Aging Laboratory at Harvard' s School of Medicine has shown that resveratrol stimulates Sirt I, the Sirtuin gene that makes organisms live longer by increasing the activity of their mitochondria or the cell ' s powerhouse.  The only other way to trigger Sirt I activity is by a 30% caloric restriction.

The new Resveratrol Enhanced Wine containing up to 100mg/1 of resveratrol, compared to 1-2mg/l in current white wines and 3-6mg/l in current red wines , developed and patented by Dr. Philip Norrie means that white wine drinkers no longer have to feel that they are drinking an inferior product compared to red wine drinkers.

The only downside to consuming wine is if it is abused , but if it is consumed in moderation daily then only health benefits will result. Hippocrates (460-370BCE , Greek

Physician and father of modem medicine) said we should let food be our medicine and that " wine is fit for man in a wonderful way provided it is taken with good sense by the sick as well as the healthy" . Wine needs to be consumed daily as the antioxidants (like vitamins) cannot be stored hence need to be ingested daily.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln " The problem of alcoholism is not the use of a bad thing, but the abuse of a very good one". The members of the wine industry are not purveyors of poison, as the anti-alcohol lobby groups would have us believe, but actually delayers of death and will help you to die young as late as possible, just like the medical profession.

In summary - wine is different to all other alcoholic beverages because it also contains nature's most potent antioxidants and it is consumed in the most healthful way.

SUMMARY OF BENEFITS

1.  Reduced vascular disease which kills up to 50% of us resulting : -

(a)  Reduced Coronary Heart Disease by up to 50%(14)

(b)  Reduced Ischaemic Stroke (Ischaemic strokes account for 90-95% of all strokes)(l 5)

(c)  Reduced Deep Vein Thrombosis by up to 50% (16)

(d)  Reduced Ostoeporosis (17)

(e)  Increased Intellect in the Elderly(9)

(f)  Reduced Macular Degeneration (a common cause of blindness) by up to 34%(12)

(g)  Reduced Renal Failure (up to 50% ofrenal failure due to Vascular disease)(l 8)

2.   Tonic - wine contains many substances including most vit amins , minerals , trace elements , proteins and carbohydrates (1)

3.   Fat and cholesterol free source of carbohydrate(l)

4.   Reduced cancer because the Antioxidants in wine block free radicals causing damage to the cell's nucleus (19)

5.   Reduced blood pressure (20)

6.   Antiseptic due to alcohol and more importantly polyphenols (21)

7.   Increases morale and appetite - nursing home and hospital patients (30) + (5)

8.   Wine contains Quercetin, Resveratrol and Epicatechin, which are Nature' s most Potent antioxidants and also act as anti-carcinogens (22)

9.   Reduction in colds/ URTI by up to 85% (23)

10.  Diabetes reduced by up to 50% because the antioxidants reduce insulin resistance. Dry wine best alcoholic drink that is allowed with diabetes as all the sugar has been converted to alcohol.(24)

11.   Reduced gallstones by up to 30% (25)

12.   Reduced kidney stones by up to 39% (26)

13.   Reduced Alzheimer' s disease and multinfarct (stroke) forms of dementia by up to 80%(9)

14.   Reduced Parkinson ' s disease (27) 15 .  Improved digestion (5)

16.   Reduced H. Pylori infection of the stomach and duodenum  leading to reduced Ulcers (28)

17.   Improved physical and intellectual condition in the elderly (10)

18.   Reduced Hepatitis A (29)

19.   Reduced stress and depression (30)

20.   Reduced essential tremor (3I)

21.   Reduced tooth decay (32)

22.   Reduced cancer of the prostate by up to 50% (33)

References

(1)    McDonald, J., Nutrition , A Symposium on Wine, Health and Society Wine Institute, Washington , D.C. February 24, 1986

(2)    Rankine ,B. , Making Good Wine. A Manual of Winemaking Practice for Australia and New Zealand. Pan MacMillan Aust. P/L, 1993.

(3)    Willett , W., Harvard ' s New Mediterranean Diet Guidelines Include Wine, Research News Bulletin, The Wine Institute , Vol.2, No. I , January 1993

(4)    Ellison , R., Alcohol in the Mediterranean Diet , American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, (65) pp13785-12825, 1995

(5) Wine in Nutrition Study , Bulletin of the Society of Medical Friends of Wine, Vol. 17 No. l , February 1975

(6) Gronbaek , M., Mortality Associated with Moderate Intakes of Wine, Beer or Spirits. British Medical Journal, Vol.310,6th May 19 95, pp1165-1169

(7)  Streppel, M..Tetal, Long -term wine consumption is related to cardiovascular mortality and life expectancy independently of moderate alcohol intake. Zutphen Study , Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 30 April , 2009, doi:1 O. l l 36/jech2008.082198, p. l

(8)   Moderate alcohol consumption in middle age can lower cardiac risk www.bio-medicine-org/medicine-news-l / moderate alcohol consumption in  middle age can lower cardiac risk, 3/7/2008,p l

(9)   Mehlig, K. eta l; Alcoholic Beverages and Incidence of Dementia :3 4-year follow­ up of the Prospective Population Study of women in Goteborg , American Journal of Epidemiology 2008, Vol.167, Number 6 ,pp. 684-691, abstract

(10)  Orgogozo, M., etal  Wine Consumption  and Dementia in the Elderly: A Prospective community study in the Bordeaux area, Revue Neurologique , Vol.153 No.2,1997

(11)  Truelsen, T. ,eta l; Amount and type of alcohol and risk of dementia. The Copenhagen City Heart Study. Neurology 2002; Vol.59, pp.131 3-1319, Conclusion

(12)   Obisesan, T.O. , eta) Moderate wine consumption is associated with decreased odds of developing age-related macular degeneration in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1971-1975). Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 1998 ,46(I), pp1-7

(13)  Castelnuovo. A., eta l; Meta-Analysis of Wine and Beer Consumption in Relation To Vascular Risk, Circulation, 2002; 105:2836 , Conclusion

(14)   Renaud, S. Wine , Alcohol, platelets, and the French paradox for coronary heart disease. The Lancet Vol. 339, 20 June 1992, pp 1523-1526

(15)   Rodgers H., Alcohol and Stroke: A case Control Study of Drinking Habits Past and Present. Stroke Vol. 24,1993, pp 1473-1477

(16)   Maale j, N.., Antithrombotic Effect of Flavonoids in Red Win e, Wine Nutritional and Therapeutic Benefits, American Chemical Society, Washington D.C.1997

(17)    Alcohol and Stronger Bones - The Newly Emerging Evidence , Wine Issues Monitor, The Wine Institute , San Francisco 1997

(18)    Bertelli, A., eta!; Resveratrol, a component of Wine and Grapes, in the Prevention of Kidney Disease in Alcohol and Wine in Health and Disease , Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2002 Vol. 957, pp230-238

(19)   Renaud, S, Alcohol and Mortality in middle aged men from Eastern France, Epidemiology, 1998, Vol.9,No.2

(20)   Jackson, R, Alcohol consumption and blood pressure. American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol.122,NO.6 ,4th April , l985, pp1037- l 044

(21)    Weisse, M., eta!, Wine as a digestive aid comparative antimicrobial effects of bismuth salicylate and red and white wine , British Medical Journal, 1995 Vol.311, pp1657-1660

(22)   California Wines and their antioxidant activity in inhibiting oxidation of Human Low-Density Lipoproteins, Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry,1995 Vol43 pp890-894

(23)   Takkouche , B. , eta !., Intake of Wine , Beer and Spirits and the Risk of Clinical Common Cold, American Journal of Epidemiology 2002 , Vol.155, No.9, pp853- 858

(24)    Rimm , E., eta!. , Prospective study of cigarette smoking, alcohol use and the  risk of diabetes in men , British Medical Journal, 1995 , Vol310 , pp555-559 and Lazarus,R. , etal, Alcohol intake and insulin levels : the Normative Aging Study, American Journal of Epidemiology, 1997, Vol 145, pp909-916

(25)   Maclure , K. eta!., Weight Diet and the Risk of Symptomatic Gallstones, New England Journal of Medicine , August 19

(26)   Curham , G., eta l., Prospective study of beverage use and the risk of kidney stones, America! Journal of Epidemiology, I 996 , Vol.143 .,No.3, pp240-247

(27)   Bertelli, A., etal, Resveratrol, Map kinases and neuronal cells: might wine be a neuroprotectant? Drugs under Experimental and Clinical Research, 1999, Vol .XXV (2/3)pp99- l 03

(28)   Brenner, H., etal. Alcohol consumption and Helicobacter Pylori infection: Results from the German National Health and Nutrition Survey, Epidemiology, 1999, Vol.IO pp214-218

(29)   Alcohol in Moderation Gateway website

(30)   Lipton, R., The effect of moderate alcohol use on the relationship between stress and depress ion, American Journal of Public Health, 1994, V0184, pp1913-1917

(31)    Ford.G., The Science of Healthy Drinking, Wine Appreciation Guild 2003 Chapter 26 Essential Tremors pp261-266

(32)    Daglia, M. et al, Antibacterial Activity of Red Wine and White Wine against Oral Streptococci, J.Agric. Food Chem., 2007,55,5038-5042

(33)    Stanford,J.L., Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Prostate Cancer in Middle Aged Men, Int.I . Cancer, 2004 Aug 25

[the-winedoctor]

Wine as Medicine  -  Part Three – The Modern Era

By Dr Philip NORRIE  MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM

        After the Middle Ages wine was constantly prescribed for medicinal purposes by the medical profession. The leading English physician of his day, Dr William Heberden (1710-1801 of Heberden’s nodes fame) advocated the use of wine to benefit one’s health. As a result, the use of wine as a medicine increased in popularity among English doctors, hence the medical professional internationally.In1818 Thomson’s London Dispensatory contained a chapter on wines, listing ten formulas for medicinal wine. The British Pharmacopoeia, as recently as a century ago, contained formulas using wine, sherry and brandy.

        Hospitals regularly used wine as a medicine. For example, the single biggest expenditure of Leicester Hospital in England in 1773 was for wine for their patients. In Germany, at the Alice Hospital in Darmstadt,755 patients, between October 1870 and early April 1871 (i.e. in less than six months),consumed 4,633 bottles of white wine,6,332 bottles of red wine,60 bottles of champagne and 30 dozen bottles of port, besides some superior white wine and Bordeaux. Oh to be sick in those days !

         So it follows that the English surgeon in charge of the health of all the convicts, soldiers, sailors and free settlers on board the First Fleet sailing from England to found the settlement in Sydney, Australia in 1787,Surgeon John White, insisted on having wine available to maintain the health of everyone during the six month voyage. This tradition of using wine as a medicine during the long voyages out to Australia, from England, was to continue until transportation of convicts to Australia ended in 1868.This practice was the first large scale use of wine as a preventative medicine in modern times and guaranteed the health of all the convicts, soldiers, sailors and free settlers for 80 years.

            Between 1863 and 1865 a series of articles by Dr Robert Druitt about the medicinal virtues of foreign wines appeared in the “Medical Times Gazette”. The series was later published in a book in 1873 entitled “A report on the Cheap Wines from France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Hungary and Australia”. In the book he concluded “The Medical Practitioner should know the virtues of wine as an article of diet for the healthy and should prescribe what, when, and how much should be taken by the sick”. Note Dr Druitt was talking about preventative medicine here when he was talking about wine as part of the diet for the healthy. Dr Druitt’s book was followed in 1877 by one called “On the Uses of Wine in Health and Disease” by Dr Anstie, a physician at the Westminster Hospital in London. Originally this book appeared as a series of articles in the “Practitioner” medical journal. Dr Anstie argued against the opponents of wine stating that its medical use was “established by wide spread custom” and therefore not subject to discussion. Even the great French physician Dr Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) wrote a ten volume encyclopaedia of current European medical treatments titled “Traite de Medecine” which included many wine prescriptions. An endorsement of wine by one so famous as Charcot was not to be taken lightly.  

           Alcoholic drinks were also a safe alternative to polluted and cholera or typhoid infected water, and milk which was often infected with tuberculosis before Pasteurisation became mandatory. The only safe and infection free drink was alcoholic and the most therapeutic of the alcoholic drinks was wine, not spirits. Arguably the greatest scientist ever, the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), who first proposed the germ theory and gave us Pasteurisation, described wine as ”the most healthful and hygienic of beverages”. Even as late as 1892 Professor Alois Pick of the Vienna Institute of Hygiene recommended adding wine to water to sterilize the water during the cholera epidemic of Hamburg.

            The Twentieth Century witnessed huge changes in medicine. Infection was no longer the biggest killer of mankind – that title was transferred to vascular disease which included heart attack, stroke, renal failure, peripheral vascular disease, vascular dementia and aortic aneurysm. The average life expectancy was significantly increased so now people were suffering from a whole new group of diseases called degenerative diseases such as cancer, diabetes, dementia and arthritis. Also for the first time the medical professional understood what caused these diseases. Knowing the pathophysiology of the various diseases meant for the first time we were able to prevent these diseases, hence the concept of Preventative Medicine becomes relevant. Surely the best way to treat a disease is to not get it in the first place!

           Again, even today, wine is just as highly relevant as it was in the past. Instead of being a tonic and preventing the biggest cause of death in the past namely infection; wine now is still our best preventative medicine for the new Twenty First Century diseases as it can, if consumed in moderation daily, reduce our death from all causes rate by up to 50% which includes reducing vascular disease by up to 50%,dementia by up to 80%,cancer by up to 24% and significantly reducing insulin resistance thus helping to prevent diabetes. It does this by reducing bad cholesterol(LDL) levels, increasing good cholesterol (HDL) levels, acting as an anti-coagulant to reduce clot formation, acting as an anti-oxidant to reduce bad cholesterol being incorporated into the artery wall to form artery blocking plaques of atheroma, by reducing nitrous oxide levels within artery lining endothelial cells which finally reduces inflammation within the artery wall which leads to unstable plaque rupturing and causing blockage of the artery.

          The vascular disease/diabetes epidemic has become so bad that doctors were proposing “The Poly Pill” as a preventative measure. This Poly Pill would contain asprin to act as an anticoagulant (thin the blood),a statin drug to reduce cholesterol levels and an ACE inhibitor drug to reduce  blood pressure.

           Wine does the same thing but even better because it contains anti-oxidants such as resveratrol  and is far better tasting !

            The USA insurance industry knew from the early Twentieth Century ,by examining its statistics, that people who consumed alcohol lived longer than teetotalers. Pearl wrote this up in an article published in 1926 called “Alcohol and Longevity”. Unfortunately, the anti-alcohol lobby was in control and Prohibition came into being. Eventually science and evidence based medical research prevailed as more and more medical studies showed the medicinal virtues of consuming wine in moderation. In 1988 Prof Charles Henneckens from Harvard Medical School showed moderate alcohol consumption reduced coronary heart and stroke in women and in 1991 Dr Eric Rimm, also from Harvard Medical School, showed an inverse relationship between alcohol consumption and coronary heart disease, for example. The world’s leading epidemiologist at the time, Sir Richard Doll from Oxford University, said ”When we allow for age,smoking and other known risk factors, the moderate drinkers have the lowest total death rates and the lowest rates for vascular death”.

           But it was Prof Serge Renaud’s land mark “French Paradox” article, which appeared in the Lancet in 1992, that cemented wine’s pre-eminence as the healthiest of the alcoholic beverages when it showed that, despite eating a diet rich in fat ,the French people had a lot less coronary heart disease than Americans because they drank wine. Prof Renaud concluded that “Red Wine is the most effective drug yet discovered, for the prevention of heart disease”. This was followed by Dr Morten Gronbaek’s “Copenhagen Study” published in the British Medical Journal in 1995,which was the first scientific study to divide alcoholic beverages into beer, wine and spirits and then compare their death rates. It showed that spirits drinkers increased their death rate by up to 34%,beer drinks showed very little change but wine drinkers reduced their death from all causes rate by 50%.The recent Zutphen Study from the Netherlands also favoured wine drinkers when it showed they lived on average 5 years longer than teetotalers.

           The next logical step in the history of wine as a medicine is to make wine even healthier, which I have done by making the world’s first full strength Resveratrol Enhanced Wine (REW).Resveratrol is one of the anti-oxidants in wine that gives it its many health benefits, but resveratrol is unique in that it is the only substance to stimulate SIRT 1 which is a substance that makes cells live longer. This has been shown by research conducted by Prof David Sinclair ,who is the head of the Harvard Anti-Aging Research Laboratory in Boston, USA. A normal white wine has 1-2mg/l of resveratrol and a normal red wine has 3-6 mg/l of resveratrol in it. My REW has up to 100 mg/l of resveratrol making it much more therapeutic.

          In summary - it is now becoming apparent that abstinence from consuming wine in moderation can be a health hazard if you look at all the evidence based medical studies; which leads me to conclude with my favourite advice to my patients – wine is the thinking person’s health drink, so enjoy it in moderation daily.

[the-winedoctor]

Wine as Medicine  - Part Two  - The Middle Ages

By Dr Philip NORRIE   MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons}, PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM

     After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 Europe entered into the Dark Ages where many traditions and much learning was lost including the knowledge of Greek healing , which included the use of wine as a medicine. The Roman Empire was replaced by the Catholic Church and the Roman Emperor by the Pope as well.

    The first major epidemic of this period was the Plague of Justinian which nearly wiped out the population of Europe. It was named after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (482-565) because the infection began during his reign and reached his capital Constantinople in 542. It was caused by Bubonic Plague and lasted until as late as 775 in some parts of Europe, recurring in waves over this time. Eventually it was to kill half the population of Europe hence was also referred to as “Mortalitas Magna” or the Great Death.

    During this time the Prophet Muhammad (570-632) founded the Islamic religion and by 630 he controlled all of Arabia. The Plague of Justinian did not infect Arabia like it did Europe, instead Arabia suffered from some outbreaks of smallpox. From 634 large plague free Muslim armies swarmed out of Arabia and invaded plague ravaged Europe, which could only mount token resistance due to lack of soldiers because so many had died of plague. These Muslim armies attacked via the Balkans and Spain.

    Why is this so important for our story about the use of wine as a medicine ? Because during the Dark Ages it was the Byzantine physicians who preserved the traditions and learning of the great Greek and Roman physicians and healers, otherwise lost to the Europeans. They in turn taught the Arabian physicians who then reintroduced this knowledge back into Europe when the Moors invaded Spain in 711. So the Greek tradition of using wine as a medicine had gone full circle from Greece to Rome to Byzantine to Arabia and then finally back into Europe with the Moors.

    During this time Arabia provided the world with the finest physicians. But the Koran (Qur’an or reading) presented Arab doctors with a dilemma. According to the Koran, wine was a “device of the devil” hence forbidden, but it also states “of the fruits of the date palm and grapes, whence ye derive strong drink and good nourishment, is healing for mankind”. The main influence on Islamic medicine was Greek with its extensive therapeutic use of wine. So Islamic doctors used wine as a medicine only and did not prescribe it for “social” reasons.

    Rhazes (860-932) was a great Arabic doctor and was the first to describe smallpox and measles in the literature. He used compresses soaked in wine to prevent infection. Avicenna (980-1037), who was also known as the ‘Prince of Physicians’, wrote the main medical textbook for Western and Eastern medicine called the “Canon of Medicine”. It was used until about 1650 and in it he advocated wine for dressings and stated that “wine is also very efficient in causing the products of digestion to become disseminated through the body”. Avicenna was philosophical about the use of wine saying ”Is wine to blame that it raises the wise to heaven, but plunges the fool into darkness”. In his Canon of Medicine Avicenna devotes a whole section to wine starting with “Virtues of Wine” and ending with “Anaesthetics”. The following extract lists the advantages of wine and is the best sales pitch for wine I have heard for a long time – “As to the advantages that be in wine – it strenghteneth the viscera and banisheth care, and moveth to generosity and preserveth health and digestion; it conserveth the body, expelleth disease from the joints,purifieth the frame of corrupt humours, engendereth cheerfulness, gladdeneth the heart of man and keepeth up the natural heat; it enforceth the liver and removeth obstructions, reddeneth the cheeks, cleareth the brain and deferreth grey hairs”. What doesn’t it do ?

    Albucasis (936-1013) was the most famous Arabic surgeon. His “Treatise on Surgery” was the first complete book of surgery with illustrations on techniques and instruments. It was translated from Arabic into Latin in the late twelfth century, then into English in 1778. He recommended wine to prevent infection of wounds and to irrigate infected parts of the body such as the sinuses.

    The Arabs were also the first to separate pharmacology, then known as the arts of apothecary and alchemy, from physicians and surgeons. The first apothecary shop opened in Baghdad in 754. Haly ben Abbas was another famous tenth century Arabic physician who wrote the medical encyclopaedia “Almaleki” or Royal book which contained section on wine. So did the extensive pharmacology book “Book of the Foundations of the True Properties of the Remedies” written by the famous tenth century Persian pharmacologist Mansur the Great. One of the wine based remedies recommended was if you gargled with “wine in which plum leaves have been boiled, he alleviates all complaints of catarrh which exists in the throat, neck and chest”.

    Monks were the primary healers in medieval Europe. Their medicines were based on the Greek and Roman formulae, with some Islamic influence, that had been handed down by the Muslim forces and their doctors. They used mainly plants and herbs mixed in wine but also animal products. Later, after the influence of Paracelsus, they also mixed minerals into their wine based medicines. The monks preserved this medical knowledge in their libraries and advanced science and viticulture within the protection of their monasteries. Each different order of monks had their own secret recipe of wine based medicine which are preserved today as liqueurs such as D.O.M. Benedictine which was first made in a Benedictine Abbey in France in 1510.

    There were doctors outside the religious orders who also advocated wine as a medicine such as Arnauld de Villeneuve (1235-1311) who wrote the book “Liber de Vinis” which recommended wine as a tonic, as part of a poultice and as an anti-septic especially to sterilize polluted water.

    Theodoric (1205-1296) insisted on wine being used in dressings and was the first to challenge the doctrine of “laudable pus”, which was the teaching and belief that the best method of treating a wound was to promote suppuration, the formation of pus, and that the wound should be kept open. All this achieved was increased infection and subsequent death from septacaemia.

    Hieronymus Brunschwig (1450-1533) was a surgeon in the Alsation army where he treated lots of gunshot wounds. He promoted a mixture of strong Gascony wine, brandy and herbs which he called “Aqua Vite Composite” for cleansing wounds but it could also “cure palsy, putteth away ring-worms, expel poison and it was most wholesome for the stomach, heart and liver”.

    The last of the famous non religious doctors was Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim  (1493-1541), who was also known as Paracelsus. He popularized chemical medicine and the use of minerals in wine based medicines as therapeutic agents, against the accepted followers of Galen who used mainly plant based medicines; hence he earned the title “Father of Pharmacology”. Paracelsus was a great advocate of the use of wine as a medicine and once stated that “whether wine is a nourishment, medicine or poison is a matter of dosage”.

[the-winedoctor]

Wine as Medicine - Part One – The Ancient World

By Dr Philip NORRIE  MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM

     Man has been drinking wine for over 9,500 years. The oldest known wine, until recently, had been made in Georgia some 9,000 years ago, but a Neolithic excavation at Jiahu, near the Yellow River in northern China, has unearthed pieces of pottery which contain the dried remains of wine made from indigenous grapes 500 years earlier. Thus China is where our wine story begins. The ancient Chinese materia medica not only mixed plants and minerals with wine, but also selected parts of various animals which were thought to have virtues; such as in the prescription for an abortion : rub a mixture of lizard’s liver ,skin of the cicada locust and wine onto the navel.

     The ancient Egyptians used wine as a medicine dating as far back as 3,000 BCE, as shown by the medical papyri known today. This makes wine man’s oldest medicine, by far. The ancient Egyptians used wine [ along with water, honey, milk and oil ] as a mixing  medium or solvent in which to mix and blend other medicines. Today we use alcohol and sugar as mixing mediums which is similar to the Egyptian wine, which contains alcohol, and honey, which contains sugar. Wine was also used as an integral part of the prescription such as the Ebers Papyrus prescription for the treatment of jaundice : leaves of lotus 4 ro, wine 20 ro, powder of zizyphus 4 ro, figs 4 ro, milk 2 ro, fruit of uuniperus 2 ro, frankincense ½ rim, sweet beer 20 ro, (it) remains during the night in the dew, is strained, and taken for 4 days.

     There are several reasons why wine was so well suited to being used as a medicine. Firstly it was easy to make. In ancient times they were not out to make a First Growth wine but one that was functionable – in other words it was drinkable and did the job as a medicine. Ancient winemakers used whatever grapes were available, usually indigenous, and relied on the natural yeast on these bunches of grapes to ferment the wine in large clay jars, which were later sealed with clay stoppers and wax. Secondly wine was easy to drink and the high alcohol content made dissolving other medicines much easier. Thirdly wine made crude medicines palatable. Imagine drinking the flesh of a pit viper [Chinese prescription for stomach pain] or the ground testicles of an ass [Egyptian prescription for epilepsy] without the wine content ? Fourthly the intoxication of the wine would have eased the burden of most complaints. One of the main things a person needs to be a good doctor, be it  5,000 years ago or today, is the power of observation – the ability to observe what is wrong with the patient, why are they different to healthy people ,what could be adversely affecting them ? So lastly, the ancient doctors would have also observed that wine worked – it made people better ! They would not have known why, as we do today with our advanced scientific knowledge, but they would have known by observing their patient’s improving health.

       The main cause of death in the ancient world would have been due to infectious diseases. Most of the major historical changes in the ancient world were due to epidemics such as bubonic plague and tularemia ending the Hittite Empire and the Bronze Age c.1200 BCE or smallpox limiting the expansion of Carthage in Sicily and thus making it vulnerable to defeat by Rome or falciparum malaria significantly contributing to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The anti-oxidants and alcohol in wine make it a very good antiseptic, so wounds were soaked in wine, either by using cloth or a sea sponge, to prevent infection and wine was mixed with the local water to prevent various water borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.

       Other medicinal uses for wine, besides being a mixing medium for other medicines and to prevent or to treat infections, include :

1] it made a very good hypnotic to send people to sleep

2] it was used as a tonic and treatment for anaemia, such as ”Tabatu” ,an ancient Babylonian medicinal tonic, because it contained iron and other essential vitamins, minerals, trace elements, proteins and carbohydrates such as sugar.

3] it was used as a cooling agent in fevers by soaking the patient in wine or rubbing them all over with wine.

4] a combination of wine and honey was a popular remedy for a cough .

5] it was used as a treatment for constipation or diarrhea, depending on the dosage.

6] it was used to restore the appetite of the sick; like an aperitif

7] wine made a very good diuretic

8] it was used as a sedative or tranquilizer

9] light white wine was used as an anti-nauseant

     So it can be seen that wine has a long history of medical service to mankind which continues today, because wine is the best preventative medicine for today’s biggest killer – vascular disease such as in heart attacks and strokes.

 Mesopotamia

     The Sumerian culture began around 5.000 BCE and had the earliest known form of writing using stylized pictures called pictograms on clay tablets. The earliest known medical handbook is a Sumerian pharmacopoeia written on clay tablets dated c. 2,200 to 2,100 BCE excavated at Nippur in 1910. It recommended the use of wine as a medicine.

 India

     During the Vedic period of Indian history [2,500 to 200 BCE], with its origins around the Indus River system, wine was worshipped as the liquid God Soma, because of its medicinal attributes. The Hindus’ most ancient sacred text called the Vedas included a life science and medical text section called Ayur-Veda, part of which was the famous Charaka Samhita, which deals extensively with the use of wine as a medicine.

 Greece

     The ancient Greek physicians were the first to prescribe wine undiluted and it was one of their most recommended medicines. Hippocrates (460-377 BCE) is recognized as the Father of Modern Western Medicine because he was the first to claim that disease was not due to the wraith of the gods but due to poor nutrition or disease. He wrote about using wine extensively saying “Wine is fit for man in a wonderful way, providing it is taken with good sense by the sick as well as the healthy”.

     Other famous Greek physicians include Asclepiades of Bithyria (124-40 BCE) who wrote an essay about the virtues of wine entitled “Concerning the Dosage of Wine” and Dioscorides (40-90 CE) who became the founder of the study of medicinal substances as an applied science, called Materia Medica and wrote one of the first complete medical text books De Universa Medicina in 78 CE. He was a great advocate of the use of wine as a medicine writing “In general wine warms the body ,it is digestible, increases the appetite, helps the sleep and has reviving properties”.

      The last of the famous Greek physicians was Galen (131-201 CE) who was second only to Hippocrates and practiced mainly in Rome where he cared for the gladiators as well as the general public. Thus he became well versed in treating combat wounds and advocated the use of wine as an antiseptic. He developed many drug combinations mixed with wine which became known as Galenicals. These Galenicals went on to dominate medical prescribing in Europe and the Middle East for the next 1500 years, so great was his influence.

 Rome

     The Roman Empire was responsible for spreading viticulture throughout the Mediterranean and Europe as well as spreading the Greek physician’s knowledge about the use of wine as a medicine. One of the earliest Roman physicians was Aurelius Cornelius Celsus (25 BCE – 37 CE) who wrote the medical tome De Medicina and also wrote about the therapeutic uses of wines from different regions of Italy, Sicily and Greece. The other great Roman scientist was Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) who wrote Historia Naturalis, the unique encyclopaedia about plants and medicine which listed over 100 different wines to be used as medicines. He devoted twelve books of the Historia Naturalis exclusively to medicine and it was he who came up with the famous quotes “”In vino sanitas – In wine there is health” and “In vino veritas – In wine there is thruth”.

 Biblical Jewish Era

     Wine, Yayin in Hebrew, was and still is an integral part of Jewish culture, religion and medicine. Wine accompanied meals, was drunk on religious occasions and was an important part of celebrations.

      In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) Jesus mentions the medicinal use of wine saying that the Good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the assaulted traveller and poured on olive oil and wine to prevent infection of the wounds. In the Middle East today, a mixture of olive oil and wine known as ‘Samaritan Balm’ is still available as an antiseptic for skin wounds.

     The Jewish Talmud written between 536 BCE and 427 CE states the following about wine - “Wine taken in moderation induces appetite and is beneficial to health …Wine is the greatest of medicines. Where wine is lacking, drugs are necessary”.

[the-winedoctor]

The Best Way to Absorb Resveratrol is Via the Buccal Mucosa – Which is the Lining of the Mouth, Which Happens When You Drink Wine

By Dr. Philip NORRIE, MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. the Wine Doctor and inventor of the world’s first full strength Resveratrol Enhanced Wine or REW

 Resveratrol is the anti-oxidant in wine which gives wine a lot of its health benefits. It is found in the grape skin to protect the grape from fungal infection. Hence the way it is absorbed into our blood system, where it can be transported to every part of the body, is important.

 Resveratrol usually comes in a capsule, but sometimes in a coated pill, so that it is not exposed to the air, which would oxidise or break down the resveratrol. The capsule is swallowed and goes to the stomach and then onto the bowel where it is absorbed and then transported by the Portal blood system to the liver, where it is metabolised before it enters the normal or Systemic blood system which carries it to all parts of the body. This is called the ‘First Pass Effect’. It is then eliminated from the body in our urine or faeces.

 After this long journey a lot of the resveratrol has been broken down [metabolized] hence the blood levels are lower than if the resveratrol was absorbed directly into the Systemic blood system, as happens when the resveratrol comes in wine. When we drink wine we swill the wine around in our mouths in order to appreciate the wine more. We want to savour its flavour, its body, its mouth feel and its length when we swallow it. By swilling the wine around in our mouth – the resveratrol gets absorbed directly into the Systemic blood system via the lining of the mouth which is called the buccal mucosa. This resveratrol absorbed through the buccal mucosa is also not metabolized or broken down by the liver because it bypasses the First Pass effect.

 A study of resveratrol absorption by Asensi M., Medina I., Ortega A., et al, from the Department of Physiology at the University of Valencia in Valencia ,Spain, in 2002 (1) showed that if you swilled the wine around in your mouth for one minute the amount of resveratrol absorbed was a staggering 250 times more than if you took the resveratrol as a pill or capsule !

 So this confirms what we wine lovers have known for thousands of years – wine is the thinking person’s health drink, if taken in moderation. It is part of a healthy diet, as shown by the Mediterranean Diet, which helps you die young as late as possible. Enjoy your wine in moderation daily.

 (1) Asensi M., Medina I., Ortega A., et al, Inhibition of cancer growth by resveratrol is related to its low bioavailability, Free Radic. Biol. Med., 2002, Aug. 1, Vol. 33, pp. 387 – 398.

[the-winedoctor]

How Resveratrol Can Help Boost Your Immune System So That You Can Better Combat The Current Coronavirus Pandemic And Other Future Novel Infections

By Dr. Philip NORRIE, MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. the Wine Doctor and inventor of Resveratrol Enhanced Wine

The world is currently in the grips of the Coronavirus Pandemic. It is not the first Pandemic and certainly will not be the last Pandemic to infect the world – think of the Spanish Flu in 1918-19, the Asia Flu in 1957-58, the Hong Kong Flu in 1968-69 and the Swine Flu in 1976. These were all variations of the Influenza virus.

With the rise in mass global air travel came the possibility of the rapid spread of infections – especially viral infections causing respiratory infections. The first of these new age rapidly spreading infections was the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS coronavirus infection in 2003; which was followed in 2012 by the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS coronavirus CoV . Now we have the coronavirus COVID – 19 Pandemic.

Because these Pandemics are mainly caused by viruses; we have to rely on our immune system to fight off these viruses, because they are not bacterial infections which could be killed by antibiotics. There are only a few different types of antiviral drugs and they are usually expensive.

So how can we improve our immune system to protect us from these various infections – now and in the future? Not smoking is a good start because most infections eventually cause a respiratory system infection such as pneumonia which can kill the infected person. Staying fit and healthy are also very important; as well as eating a healthy diet rich in anti-oxidants. This is where RESVERATROL comes into its own.

An article was published in 2017, by BMC Infectious Diseases, showing how Resveratrol was able to control the MERS CoV infection in vitro – that is in laboratory trials. The article was titled “ Effective inhibition of MERS CoV infection by resveratrol” by Lin, S. C. et al . It identified the various ways that Resveratrol was able to not only inhibit MERS CoV infection but also other emerging RNA viruses.

Another recent pro-Resveratrol article was published in 2019 by Nutrients. It was titled “Influence of Resveratrol on the Immune Response.” by Malaguarnera, L et al. This article also identified various ways Resveratrol was able to boost our immune system. The article concluded – “The effects of this biologically active compound on the immune system are associated with widespread health benefits for different autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases.”

For the biochemists and medically trained – the various possible antiviral mechanisms postulated by which Resveratrol inhibits viral infections include the following :

1] Activate ERK ½ signaling pathway

2] Enhance SIRT 1 signaling – both of these help cell survival and DNA repair in response to DNA damage from the virus.

3] Down-regulating FGF -2 signaling which would counter viral induced apoptosis or cell death.

4] Inhibiting inflammatory cytokines by interfering with the NF [nuclear factor] -kappa B pathway.

5] Reducing cleaved Caspase 3 levels. Caspase 3 cleavage occurs in cell apoptosis.

In summary - Resveratrol promotes cell survival and reduces viral induced apoptosis.

The various possible mechanisms for Resveratrol boosting the immune system’s response to infection and chronic inflammatory diseases include the following :

1] As above – Resveratrol targets SIRT 1, NF – kappa B and inflammatory cytokines

2] Targeting adenosine monophosphate kinase

3] Enhances anti-oxidant enzymes

4] Suppresses TLR or Toll Like Receptor which causes inflammation

5] Suppresses pro-inflammatory genes’ expression

In summary – Resveratrol enhances the immune system via the many different biological mechanisms listed above.

The best way to get your daily Resveratrol needs is by consuming either ‘The Wine Doctor’ Resveratrol Enhanced Wine or REW or ‘Reselixir’ REW; because the best way to absorb Resveratrol is via the buccal mucosa or the lining of the mouth; which is what happens when you drink Resveratrol as a wine as in Resveratrol Enhanced Wine and not as a capsule or tablet !

[the-winedoctor]

An Update About The Health Benefits Of Drinking Wine

Wine’s - ‘Halo Of Health’ - Still Shines Brightly

By Dr. Philip NORRIE, MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. the Wine Doctor and inventor of Resveratrol Enhanced Wine

Three recent medical studies have again shown the virtues of drinking wine in moderation from a health point of view.

The first study comes from the UK and was published in the British Medical Journal. It was done by Inserm in France and University College London and involved studying the drinking habits of 9,087 British civil servants, with ages ranging from 35 to 55, from 1985 to 1993, then following them over time. The researchers found that abstainers from consuming alcohol had a 50% increased risk of developing dementia compared to people drinking between 1 and 14 units of alcohol a week. Teetotallers were also more likely to develop vascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The second study is American and was done by Columbia University and Boston University. It was published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research in early August 2019 and followed 7,904 people born between 1931 and 1941 over 16 years with the core data coming from the Health Retirement Study. The study showed that abstainers had the highest mortality rate followed by heavy drinkers and then occasional drinkers. Moderate drinkers [ 1 to 2 drinks of 5 ounces of wine per day in women and 1 to 3 drinks of 5 ounces of wine per day for men ] had the lowest mortality rates overall. This study backs up the findings of the Zuphten in Holland where moderate drinkers lived on average five years longer than teetotalers.

The third study published later in August 2019 was done by King’s College, London and found that red wine was linked to better gut health; along with lower levels of obesity and LDL [low density lipoprotein] or bad cholesterol. The findings were published in the Gastroenterology journal and showed that red wine drinkers had a more diverse gut microbiome or micro-organisms found in the digestive tract, when compared to white wine, beer, cider and spirits drinkers. The reason for this is thought to be because red wine contains more polyphenols, such as resveratrol, in it than any of the other forms of alcohol.

[the-winedoctor]

An Update About The Health Benefits Of Resveratrol In Wine

By Dr. Philip NORRIE, MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. The Wine Doctor and inventor of Resveratrol Enhanced Wine

There have been two new research articles publishes recently extolling the health benefits and virtues of the compound resveratrol in wine. Resveratrol is a  olyphenol compound that is located in the grape skin to protect the grape from fungal infection during vintage time. It is an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory, just like the better known versions vitamin C and vitamin E, and gives wine a lot of its health benefits.

A normal white wine has 1-2 mg/l of resveratrol in it and a normal red wine has 3-6 mg/l of resveratrol in it – that is why red wines are thought to be healthier than white wines. By contrast my Resveratrol Enhanced Wine or REW has 100 mg/l of resveratrol in it, thus making it much healthier for you.

The first study was published on 15 July 2019 in the Neuropharmacology journal. It was carried out at the University of Buffalo in USA and showed that, in mice,  resveratrol blocked the expression of an enzyme in the brain that is related to the control of stress. The findings of the study shed more light on the mechanisms by which resveratrol impacts on neurological processes in the brain.

“Resveratrol may be an effective alternative to drugs for treating patients suffering from depression and anxiety disorders.” said A/Prof Ying Xu the co-lead author of the study and an Associate Professor at the University of Buffalo’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

When the body is stressed it produces more of the hormone corticosterone. Too much corticosterone in the brain can lead to depression and anxiety by increasing the amount of the enzyme PDE4; which in turn causes a lowering of cyclic adenosine monophosphate. Cyclic AMP is a messenger molecule that helps control cell function in the brain as well as in the body in general. It is also a primary regulator for intracellular communication in the brain; hence a lowering of its levels means the brain cells or neurones don’t ‘talk’ to each other as much as in a normal brain. The study showed that resveratrol blocked the effect of PDE4, thus maintaining cAMP levels in the brain.

Current anti-depressant medications focus on raising the levels of serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain and only help about one third of suffers from depression and anxiety. Resveratrol’s new mechanism of blocking the expression of PDE4 may be the basis of a whole new class of novel anti-depressant drugs. Or you could drink some REW daily !

The second study published a week later comes from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard University in Boston, USA. It showed that resveratrol may help protect us from muscle atrophy or wasting. The study findings, done in mice, were published in Frontiers in Physiology and showed that resveratrol had “been shown to preserve bone and muscle mass”.

Preserving bone and muscle mass is very important on earth, especially in old age, to prevent osteoporosis, falls and subsequent fractures. But in space, where there is much less gravity or no gravity at all, it is very important. NASA is now contemplating travelling to MARS. This will involve a very long journey of many months [ up to nine months one-way ] in zero gravity followed by working in the low gravity environment of MARS, which has a gravity pull 38% that of earth’s. NASA may have to get astronauts to consume REW to preserve their muscle and bone mass as well as help their morale !

[the-winedoctor]

Dr Philip Norrie’s Latest Book Wins THREE Prestigious Gourmand  Book Awards

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that my latest book “ The History of Wine as a Medicine – From its Beginnings in China to the Present Day” based on my PhD and published by the academic publishers Cambridge Scholars Publishing in UK, with the chapter on the anti-oxidant Resveratrol written by the world famous neurosurgeon Dr Joseph Maroon and Jeff Bost, has won three prestigious Gourmand Book Drink Awards for 2020.

The Gourmand Cook Book Awards and Drinks Book Awards, based in Paris, are regarded as the ‘Oscars’ of the international food and drinks industry. My book won in Category W1-4 BOOK OF THE YEAR – BEST IN ALL CATEGORIES for Australia and in Category W3-6 DRINK AND HEALTH BOOKS for Australia. It won ‘The Gourmand Book Award for Best Drink and Health Book Internationally’.

The Awards Dinner will be held in Paris as part of the Paris Book Fair between the 3rd and 7th of June 2020.

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Blog published by: Christine von Gall, Cambridge Scholars Publishing / Our Books / December 17, 2019

The History of Wine as a Medicine wins two Gourmand International prizes

Dr Philip Norrie’s The History of Wine as a Medicine has been awarded two prestigious prizes by Gourmand International, winning Australian Book of the Year and Best Australian Drink and Health Book for 2019. With contributions by Dr Joseph Maroon and Jeff Bost, the text is the first to describe mankind’s 5,000 year history of using wine for medicinal purposes.

The health benefits of wine have now been documented for some time. The notion of it being an outright medicine in itself, however, has in modern times been met with apprehension and hostility by much of the medical community, with the suspicion being that advocacy of increased alcohol usage of any form would do more harm to public health than good.

Yet the reality is that wine has been used by medical practitioners for well over 5,000 years, and recent studies have shown that its efficacy in preventing the onset of vascular and degenerative diseases may even be greater than most licensed drugs when consumed in moderation.

In modern times, wine is considered to be a luxury commodity indicative of status and sophistication, with its effects on health being, at worst, dismissed, and, at best, considered as a consolatory excuse to slip into excess. As Dr Philip Norrie shows, though, this has only recently been the case. The History of Wine as a Medicine: From its Beginnings in China to the Present Day is among the first books to openly advocate for the consumption of wine as part of a preventative approach to healthcare, and in doing so, Dr Norrie seeks to rectify the modern perception of wine as a simple luxury and re-ignite both academic and popular interest in its historical usage as a medicinal.

Norrie leaves no stone unturned as he concisely documents the history of wine as a medicine from its earliest usage almost 10,000 years ago in ancient China, its continued usage in Egyptian and Greco-Roman civilisations, right the way through to the discovery of its effectiveness in treating scurvy during the first voyages transporting convicts to Australia during the 18th century. He also documents how his research led to his invention of the first Resveratrol-infused wine to help prevent the onset of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

It should of course be pointed out that Dr Norrie throughout the book stresses the importance of moderation, so although it may be tempting to take his research as a license to pop the cork and devote the remainder of our days to Dionysian hedonism, that approach isn’t one that he – or we, for that matter – can altogether recommended.

The History of Wine as a Medicine: From its Beginnings in China to the Present Day is available on our website. Click here to purchase your copy, to read an extract, or to learn more about its authors.

[the-winedoctor]

Beijing’s ‘Wine City’ Tourist Attraction

By Dr. Philip NORRIE, MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. The Wine Doctor and inventor of Resveratol Enhanced Wine 

In February 2022 Beijing will be hosting the Winter Olympics, thus making it the only city to ever host both a Summer and a Winter Olympic Games – something unique to celebrate ! And celebrate they will because there will be a huge new tourist attraction opening for these games – a ‘Wine City’ to the northwest of Beijing, en-route to the ski fields.

This ‘Wine City’ is the creation of Dr. James Lee, a wealthy property developer who established his Lee World Industries empire in 1993. Dr. Lee has gained a Bachelors degree from the Wuhan University in China, followed by a Masters Degree in Communication from the University of China and a PhD in Political Science from the Ohio State University, where he still lectures today.

Already a fast train line has been built between the CBD of Beijing and the Olympic ski fields with two major tourist stop-offs along the way. The first tourist stop-off is at the Great Wall – the famous ancient iconic symbol of China’s building skill and power. The second major tourist stop-off is the ‘Wine City’ which will be a short 20 minute fast train ride from the heart of Beijing.

The ‘Wine City’ is located on the northern side of Guanting Lake, next to the National Wetland Park on the lake’s northern and western shores. There is a large French Chateaux style entrance building which leads into the ‘G9’ area. 

This ‘G9’ area houses the display pavilions for the ‘Group of the Nine’ most important wine countries in the world. The four Old World wine countries grouped together are France, Italy, Germany and Spain. The four New World wine countries grouped together are USA, Chile, Australia and South Africa. In the middle is the Chinese pavilion which bridges the Old World and the New World because China is where the first grape fermented wine was made some 9,500 years ago [ Old World ] and now it is rediscovering and redeveloping its wine industry [ New World ]. Each pavilion tells the story of that country’s wine industry, its lifestyle and health industries to emphasize the strong relationship between wine and health.

The entrance chateaux building tells the story of wine in general, the history of wine starting in China and the history of wine as a medicine over the past 5,000 years [ which makes wine our oldest medicine ]. I will be helping Dr. Lee with the history facts and the wine and health display based on my PhD and my books about wine history and wine and health history.

[the-winedoctor]

How the Anti-Alcohol lobby skews their research statistics to make wine look bad - more invalid stats

By Dr. Philip NORRIE   MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc[Hons], PhD, MD, FRSN, FRSM a.k.a. THE WINE DOCTOR and inventor of the World’s first full strength Resveratrol Enhanced Wine

The anti-alcohol lobby is alive and well as shown by several recent negative studies allegedly showing how bad wine is for your health. They keep peddling their lies in their latest series of fatally flawed studies and statistics, because no one from the wine industry has stood up against them and shown just how fatally flawed, hence invalid their studies are from a statistical point of view.

Some examples of the mistakes made by the anti-alcohol lobby in their studies  follow.

1] There are different types of alcohol. Mead is the oldest form of alcohol followed by wine which was first made in China 9,500 years ago. This was followed by beer which we have been drinking for about 6,000 years and finally spirits which have been around for 3,000 years.

2] The alcohol content of each type of alcohol is different. Beer usually has an alcohol content of 4%; while wine can have a range usually from 10% to 14%. The alcohol content of spirits can start at 40% and go as high as 80%.

3] The way we consume the various types of alcohol is different; which affects the final blood alcohol concentration [BAC]. Beer and spirits are usually consumed on empty stomachs, hence the consumer’s BAC rises rapidly to high levels, depending on how much is being consumed and how quickly it is being consumed. On the other hand wine is usually sipped over a long period of time whilst accompanying a meal, hence the BAC rises much slower and to a lower level in wine drinkers. Also the wine drinker is getting the benefit of consuming the meal.

4]  The different types of alcohol contain different other compounds in the beverage – it isn’t all alcohol ! This is where wine stands alone because it contains many different polyphenols such as quercetin, epicatechin and resveratrol which give extra disease protection. Beer and spirits do not have the same polyphenol content.

These four differences between beer, spirits and wine can be extrapolated into very different health outcomes as shown by the Copenhagen Study which was the first study to divide alcoholic beverages into beer, spirits and wine categories for study. The beer drinker’s death rate was similar to that of teetotalers, while the death rate amongst spirits drinkers was 30% higher than that of teetotalers. The good news for wine drinkers was that their death rate fell by up to 50% !

So if a study does not divide alcoholic beverages into the different categories of teetotaler, beer, spirits and wine – it is a fatally flawed and invalid study. As my Maths Master at high school told me when teaching me algebra – you cannot compare apples and oranges, meaning X and Y. In the same way all forms of alcohol are NOT the same !

Another mistake the anti-alcohol lobby makes in their studies is to lump all forms of alcohol consumption into one category – alcohol consumers versus teetotalers. They should divide alcohol consumption into light drinkers, moderate drinkers and finally heavy drinkers or abusers when comparing to teetotalers. Otherwise the resultant statistics will be skewed in favour of the heavy drinkers/abusers and this would reflect badly against light and moderate wine drinkers.

So any study that does not divide consumption into the categories of teetotaler, light drinker, moderate drinker and heavy drinker is again a fatally flawed and invalid study.

The following are three examples of recent studies which made headlines around the world for the wrong reasons and presented a very negative view of alcohol/wine. They are good examples of how the anti-alcohol lobby gets their incorrect and distorted misinterpretation of statistics across as correct facts and the media laps it up unfortunately, because they do not question the so called ‘facts’.

1] The most recent study got the headline – ‘ Study suggests a Bottle of Wine Equals the Cancer Risk of 10 Cigarettes’ published in the British Medical Journal. As stated earlier you cannot compare apples with oranges; and so you cannot compare smoking with drinking wine. There is no safe level for smoking; but there is a safe and also beneficial level for consuming wine in moderation.

This study is very simplistic in that it only looks at cancer and not at all the other effects of smoking and drinking wine such as the huge increase in vascular disease and COPD or emphysema with smoking, versus the up to 50% reduction in these diseases in wine drinkers. Vascular disease does not only mean acute myocardial infarction [ AMI or heart attack] and  cerebrovascular accident/disease [CVA or stroke], but also the lesser known chronic renal failure [CRF] as 50% of all renal failure patients have a poor blood supply to their kidneys due to vascular disease. Other forms of vascular disease include aortic aneurysms which can rupture causing sudden death and peripheral vascular disease which causes blockages of blood flow to the lower legs resulting in claudication and then gangrene or death of toes, then the foot and finally the leg.

This study also focused on the slight [1.4%] increase in the risk of developing breast cancer  - and this is over the whole lifespan of the person. Researchers seem to have a fixation on women’s breast cancer  - because it grabs headlines – breasts are obviously sexier than heart attacks and strokes ! But the facts do not stack up. In Australia in 2016, according to the Australian Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2,976 women died of breast cancer – so a 1.4% increase in this is equal to 41.66 extra deaths; while the biggest cause of death in women is dementia with 8,447 deaths. Prof. Serge Renaud’s famous Bordeaux Study, which gave us ‘The French Paradox’ scenario, also showed that dementia can be reduced by up to 80% in moderate wine drinkers – that equals up to 6,757.9 lives potentially saved. There have been several other studies showing wine drinkers significantly reduce their risk of dementia such as the American Veterans Study.

The second biggest cause of death in women is coronary vascular disease or heart attacks with 8,207 deaths which can be reduced by up to 50% - that equals up to 4,103.5 lives potentially saved.

The third biggest cause of death in women is cerebrovascular disease or strokes with 6,212 deaths which can also be reduced by up to 50% by drinking wine in moderation – that equals up to 3,106 lives potentially saved. In total, just by going with the first three biggest causes of death in women, up to 13,967.4 lives could potentially have been saved by drinking wine in moderation, compared to an extra 41.66 deaths from breast cancer !! And which number gets the headlines – the 41.66 extra deaths from breast cancer and not the up to 13,967.4 potential lives saved !! This is so wrong and it is time the correct counter message based on the correct facts was told. This study can also be criticised because the Bordeaux Study also showed that the overall cancer rate was reduced by 24% in moderate wine drinkers, largely because it reduces the cancer of the prostate rate by up to 50% - something conveniently not mentioned by these researchers.

Another thing to remember here is that according to Dr. Ruth Etzioni ,PhD, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, “ The cancers induced by smoking , which are very clear, are not the same as the cancers supposedly affected by alcohol- which are a lot less clear… making this comparison is not helpful and is guaranteed to cause alarm. There is a lot more uncertainty about the risk induced by alcohol consumption than about cigarette smoking.”

2] The next recent negative study had the headline – “The ‘safest level of drinking is none’, says alcohol study”. This powerful anti-alcohol headline was based on ‘The Burden of Disease Study 2016’ meta-analysis which was done by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle and funded by local Seattle hero Bill Gates through his Bill Gates Foundation. This study is SO WRONG when it comes to wine ! It did the old stupid thing which I did not think current day researchers would be stupid enough to repeat – it said that alcohol is alcohol is alcohol and did not divide the alcohol category into beer, spirits and wine. This concept was discussed earlier in this article and is one of the main reasons why a study is fatally flawed. I really did not think that researchers would be this dumb – but obviously they can be if motivated to be anti-wine and unfortunately the media grabs their dumb headline and run with it; instead of doing what all good journalists should do and check the facts. What happened to due diligence and the truth ? So if they did the research separating alcohol into beer, spirits and wine we would see a very different result. The study also did not divide alcohol consumption into light, moderate and heavy/abuse when comparing to teetotalers – it was just any alcohol consumption level. This cause for making a study fatally flawed and thus invalid has been discussed earlier in this article. Again a huge mistake which skewed the statistics in favour of the abuse consumption level effect – i.e. making alcohol look bad for the anti-alcohol lobby.

3] The Million Women Study was a meta-analysis done by Oxford University and was another study which grabbed the headlines round the world because it said that women who drank wine increased their risk of breast cancer. This study headline failed to put things into proper perspective by telling that novel concept – the truth ! It pushed the slight increase risk of breast cancer and not the huge benefit from reduced dementia and vascular disease as discussed in [1] above. This was yet another gross distortion of the facts that had a negative effect on the wine industry.

Another thing these researchers did not factor in was to look at these women who developed these extra breast cancers in more detail. Were they BRCA gene carriers hence more prone to developing breast cancer anyway? Did they have a strong family history of breast cancer hence more prone to developing breast cancer anyway? Did they breast feed their children because women who do not breast feed are more prone to develop beast cancer? So these 1.4% extra breast cancer developing women could well be BRCA gene carriers, with a strong family history of breast cancer, who did not breast feed hence were going to develop breast cancer anyway despite what their alcohol consumption rate had been! These researchers should look deeper into their sample population to find out these facts.

The last example of alcohol statistic distortion involves incorporating young people into the statistics. This is an old trick to make the alcohol related death rates look bad because one of the leading causes of death in young people[people in their 20s and 30s] is alcohol fueled accidents such as motor vehicle accidents [ MVA] and motor bike accidents [ MBA] or accidents in general either at work or outside work. But if you take out all the beer drinkers , spirits drinkers and binge drinkers then the alcohol related death rate plummets to the normal rate due to other causes such as cancer etc. – i.e. the wine related deaths are minimal. Researchers do not take the trouble to fine tune their research to take these factors into consideration. To them all forms of alcohol are the same and should be banned, when in reality wine is very good for your health. Thus they are using the figures involving beer drinkers, spirits drinkers and binge drinkers to distort the truth about wine drinkers. This is tantamount to lying. As a medical doctor I find this behavior very unethical.

In summary - these anti-alcohol studies need to be treated with the contempt that they deserve and ignored by all moderate wine drinkers who are doing the right thing by drinking wine in moderation daily to prolong the quality and quantity of their lives.

So enjoy your wine in moderation daily and remember the words of the famous French philosopher and social critic Voltaire (1694 – 1778) “Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”