TKF Science Writing

A researcher at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU has hypothesized that two glasses of red wine a day will help reduce fatty deposits in the liver. It has been in the media for a long while that two glasses of red wine were healthy, especially for middle aged men. It is thought that consuming red wine daily kept the heart from aging too rapidly.

The culprit of this phenomenom is a compound called reservatrol. Reservatrol has antioxidative properties and is found in the skins of red grapes, muscadines, red wine, natural grape juice, and tea. Similar to other antioxidents, reservatrol is thought to protect against certain forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia.

Reservatrol is a polyphenol phyochemical. Polyphenols are long chains of phenol compounds strung together. In chemistry terms, a phenol is a six membered ring with a -OH (hydroxyl) group attached. In your mind’s eye, picture a stop sign as the basic structure and then attach an oxygen atom to one corner of the hexagon and then attach one hyrdrogen atom to the oxygen. Poly is a prefix meaning many so just string together a few of these structures and you end up with a polyphenolic compound.

Phytochemicals appear in plants and are considered to have disease fighting qualities. These are the compounds that are considered to have anti-oxidative benefits to humans. By helping to fight the damage to cells that oxygen creates, polyphenols fall into this class of compounds.

The author of the thesis is Ms Elizabeth Hijona Muruamendiaraz and her report is found in ScienceDaily’s website published May 13th, 2009. The aim of the study was to determine whether the compound reservatrol reduced esteatosis (fatty liver) in rats. Three groups of rats were used:

· Group 1 had access to food and water.

· Group 2 was affected by esteatosis and was fed a high carbohydrate/fat free diet along with a period of fasting.

· Group 3 also had estatosis and had the same diet as group 2 but was also given a daily 10mg dose of reservratrol.

What Ms. Muruamendiaraz found was that members of group 3 had fewer cells with fatty liver deposits than group 2 members. She also found that group 3 had less naturally occuring oxidative substances than those in group 2. Furthermore, due to the fact that there were less oxidative substances in the reservratrol group, the livers from the rats of that group were able to conserve some of their anti-oxidants. She went on to conclude that reservratrol is beneficial in maintaining the balance between oxidative and anti-oxidative substances.

Other scientists and doctors remain sceptical of the results however and advise against drinking 14 glasses of wine a week. Some say that the build up of concentrated fructose in wine will cause fatty deposits in the liver. The jury may still be out and I’m sure more long term testing is underway about the health benefits of red wine.

In the meantime, reservratol sure does taste good.