Red Wine as a Preventative/Treatment for Cancer/Leukemia

In the age old tradition of scientific self experimentation, I courageously used my one and only body to test a scientific theory. Drum roll...

OK, all I did was drink red wine, but it was in the Public Interest.

Red wines are part and parcel of the French paradox. According to medical standards, the French consume too much fat and other stuff, but their blood pressures are characteristically low.

I bought some jug red wine in a gallon bottle for cooking. It was Carlo Rossi Burgundy. It's an OK wine, and it's drinkable, but I live in Sonoma where mo betta wines are available at a low price. We don't drink jug or box wines here. I believe it's a local felony, although rarely enforced.

Anyway, I was making chicken in vine and sipping out of the jug bottle, and, well, nothing happened. I could feel the alcohol, but the usual feeling of fatigue that overcomes me when I drink good red wine was totally absent.

So I conducted an experiment...in the Public Interest of course.

One day, I drank three full glasses of Carlo Rossi Burgundy jug wine staggered over a three hour period and recorded by feelings. I experienced no feelings of fatigue or "mellowness".

The next day, I drank three full glasses of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon red wine over the same time period. I completely relaxed as the "mellowness" enveloped me. This is my usual physical response to good red wines. They relax me to the point where I can fall asleep in my chair.

In Sonoma/Napa, there is a local mass wine bottler that puts out a brand called Charles Shaw. The wines are sold exclusively through the Trader Joe's grocery chain. This wine cost $2.00 a bottle and it is great wine. Even The Economist magazine wrote a story about this wine. It is called "Two Buck Chuck" by everyone. This is a full bodied wine, unlike the jug wine which is thin and weak.

Both the jug and Cabernet wines contain the same amount of alcohol. However, the Cabernet is a varietal wine, not a blend like the jug wine, and it is full strength. All red wines are produced by soaking the entire crushed grape in with the yeast. Overtime, the alcohol made from the yeast extracts the medicinal compounds resveratrol, quercetin, ellagic acid, etc. from the skins of the grapes into the wine. White wines are produced by fermentation AFTER the grape skins are removed.

These flavonoids lower your blood pressure, as I have discussed before. I don't know how they make jug wine, but they apparently don't soak the grapes in with the alcohol for very long. I would venture to say that most jug wines contain VERY LITTLE resveratrol, quercetin and ellagic acid, which makes them therapeutically useless. It is the lowering of blood pressure which makes the daily use of red wine in the diet so important.

A friend sent me an electronic copy of the following Ph.D dissertation. Dr. Susanne V. Talcott received her Ph.D from the University of Florida for investigating the cancer preventative and treatment powers of red wine extracts made from red muscadine and cabernet sauvignon grapes. I have only read parts of this 149 page document, but its a great background read.

The medicinal compounds resveratrol, quercetin and ellagic acid are NOT soluble in water, but they are soluble, at least partially, in the 12% alcohol found in most red wines. The increased solubility increases the bioavailability of these compounds.

http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0005682/talcott_s.pdf

Although these natural compounds are considered anti-oxidants, their medicinal properties have little to do with their anti-oxidant properties. These compounds activate/inhibit specific biochemical pathways, and this is why they are medically useful. This has been clearly established in many scientific studies.

Also, red varietal wines may differ substantially in the amount of resveratrol, quercetin, ellagic acid, etc. that they have in their skins. Cabernet sauvignon seems to be the best bet for a medicinal wine.

So drink some GOOD red wine today and get happy. Your blood pressure will thank you for it.

Stay tuned...

Grouppe Kurosawa, Medicine in the Public Interest
(http://www.grouppekurosawa.com)