Study proves drinking red wine helps prevent heart disease
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By David Liu, Ph.D. and editing by Elizabeth Hutchinson
Sunday June 12, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) – It is well known that French men and women are less likely to suffer heart disease than Americans. Some researchers speculate that drinking red wine helps French people avoid heart disease. How exactly red wine helps reduce the risk of heart disease remains unclear, though.
A study in the May 27, 2011 issue of the European Journal of Pharmacology suggests that the resveratrol found in red wine and red grapes may be responsible for this reduced risk.
The study demonstrated that resveratrol helped prevent endothelial dysfunction in rats. Endothelial dysfunction is associated with hypertension and vascular oxidative stress, or eventually cardiovascular disease.
In the study, Siddhartha R. Bhatt of the University of Houston in Texas and colleagues treated some spontaneously hypertensive rats aged three to four weeks with resveratrol in drinking water for ten weeks. Some rats remained untreated as controls.
At the end of the study, the researchers found that, when compared to the rats that had been treated with resveratrol, the rats that were untreated with resveratrol were more likely to have higher blood pressure, oxidative stress, and reduced endothelium dependent relaxation.
On the other hand, rats treated with resveratrol had lowered blood pressure; reduced hydrogen peroxide and increased superoxide dismutase activity, meaning that the red wine ingredient reduced the oxidative stress; and normalized endothelium dependent vasorelaxation, nitrite/nitrate levels, and nitrotyrosine content.
More importantly, according to the study, resveratrol treatment prevented the uncoupling of endothelial nitric oxide synthetase (eNOS) and scavenging of nitric oxide (NO), both of which would be otherwise observed in vascular diseases.
The study suggests that resveratrol can help prevent cardiovascular diseases including hypertension.
However, food consumers do not have to drink red wine to prevent cardiovascular disease. In fact, drinking red wine can increase the risk of cancer as the alcohol it contains is a carcinogen recognized by the National Toxicology Program. Fortunately, for those wishing to avoid consuming red wine, resveratrol is now available as a dietary supplement.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
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