Should we all be drinking wine?

[IgorF]

On 10/21/2023 at 6:47 PM, Mike41 said:

the evidence strongly suggest only beneficial effects

And here lies the problem - there is no _strong_ evidence of benefits at all, there are rather manipulative practices to persuade us that there are benefits. It is not possible to prove that benefits do exist for a simple reason - the wine is a compound of multiple molecules and to cut out all the possible confounders the design study that could bring a proof will be impractical (giving there exist just one "wine" that is obviously not true).

For the things that are really working the common practice looks like this - controlled studies executed in large groups (hundreds or thousands of participants) consequently reproduce the effect which with data accumulation usually becomes less and less significant but does not disappear completely (it often disappears and thus the studied thing is marked as just not working and makes no sense to loose money on further studies).

While I was a drinker for many years and loved it I came to conclusion that all this "wine in moderation" stuff makes no sense at all, there is just no way for it to work from the probabilistic point of view. The most reactive things we know are neural toxines - these are effective in very small doses due to their very specific affinity. All other things are less specific and they are either do have some affinity to some receptors - in this case the effect is visible and dose-reactive or they are passing-through due to minuscule chances to do any effect at all. This last thing seems true not only for wine but for a long list of other things being promoted for decades (or centuries) as beneficial, almost all really working things starts to become unwanted or even toxic with dose increase. So, cutting out alcohol from red wine to have a potent tool (concentration of something beneficial in it) without undesired alcohol effect is too easy to be done and probably was done thousands of times to see if there are really some working molecules there that has to become much more visible in their effect. This tiny experiment does not even require modern scientific method to discover an effect and sell one more elixir to all who is a potential customer of such a tool. So far this brought to us no "dry wine" that is a useful thing, probably because it is not a driver to sell more wine and also because people just do enjoy wine as it is without "scientific" support for it.

IMHO offcourse.

Br,

Igor

[Mike41]

On 10/25/2023 at 2:10 PM, IgorF said:

And here lies the problem - there is no _strong_ evidence of benefits at all, there are rather manipulative practices to persuade us that there are benefits. It is not possible to prove that benefits do exist for a simple reason - the wine is a compound of multiple molecules and to cut out all the possible confounders the design study that could bring a proof will be impractical (giving there exist just one "wine" that is obviously not true).

For the things that are really working the common practice looks like this - controlled studies executed in large groups (hundreds or thousands of participants) consequently reproduce the effect which with data accumulation usually becomes less and less significant but does not disappear completely (it often disappears and thus the studied thing is marked as just not working and makes no sense to loose money on further studies).

While I was a drinker for many years and loved it I came to conclusion that all this "wine in moderation" stuff makes no sense at all, there is just no way for it to work from the probabilistic point of view. The most reactive things we know are neural toxines - these are effective in very small doses due to their very specific affinity. All other things are less specific and they are either do have some affinity to some receptors - in this case the effect is visible and dose-reactive or they are passing-through due to minuscule chances to do any effect at all. This last thing seems true not only for wine but for a long list of other things being promoted for decades (or centuries) as beneficial, almost all really working things starts to become unwanted or even toxic with dose increase. So, cutting out alcohol from red wine to have a potent tool (concentration of something beneficial in it) without undesired alcohol effect is too easy to be done and probably was done thousands of times to see if there are really some working molecules there that has to become much more visible in their effect. This tiny experiment does not even require modern scientific method to discover an effect and sell one more elixir to all who is a potential customer of such a tool. So far this brought to us no "dry wine" that is a useful thing, probably because it is not a driver to sell more wine and also because people just do enjoy wine as it is without "scientific" support for it.

IMHO offcourse.

Br,

Igor

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920262/

These effects were improved with non alcoholic wine. So your point wrt alchohol is supported by this research. 

Nonetheless the effect on humans were quite evident of physiological changes that affect longevity genes with red wine. Small study, but well controlled.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Mike41

[Dean Pomerleau]

2 hours ago, Mike41 said:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920262/

These effects were improved with non alcoholic wine. So your point wrt alchohol is supported by this research. 

Nonetheless the effect on humans were quite evident of physiological changes that affect longevity genes with red wine. Small study, but well controlled.

From your study Mike:

"It is worthwhile pointing out that in our Drosophila experiments we used red wine and also non-alcoholic red wine. The results were favorable in both cases, but in Drosophila at least, non-alcoholic wine was better than ordinary red wine in terms of lifespan promotion. We did not use dealcoholized red wine in human studies because of the very low palatability. Our nuns refused to take the non-alcoholic red wine. The fact that ordinary wine is good for your health but that it is less good than dealcoholized wine may point to the damaging effect of alcohol itself on the general health of individuals."

The nuns refused to drink the wine without alcohol. LOL.

[IgorF]

Hm,

this study

- started from prejudice that the red wine is beneficial and that is what I questioned - we need first a strong evidence that it is the case, a lot of people questions this, not only me. The study itself provides zero support for such a claim.

- claims that there are some effects that should confirm authors prejudice, I do not want to guess if it was ever reproduced by somebody at all, I am not interested in these particular things they reported until the major outcome - positive health effect of red wine will be proved.

Just few red flags for me personally in this article - resveratrol (any reference to it in 2020ies seems weak, if this molecule is not itself a subject of some chemical study) and a claim about bcaa - these things are not so simple and are moving due to a lot of factors that study design even not mentioned as controlled, it would be better not to mention them at all instead of in a weak claim.

Nevertheless, I personally would be very happy to get rid of my abstinence and start drinking wine again, it would be enough for me to just have no harm, I do not really believe there could be some benefits, especially in one glass/day amounts.

Br,

Igor

 

[IgorF]

This author (skeptical about red wine) was already posted above, here is another his article where he gives a wide perspective on the topic https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.12390

(about the author https://www.alcoholresearchforum.org/a-tribute-to-arthur-klatsky-md-1929-2023/ )

There seems endless variety of factors intertwined and in my opinion there could be negative/zero/positive effects based on a persons particular case, including genes (seems hundreds if not thousands are involved) and environment.

So, it is hard to say if a person can decide if drinking could be a good or bad behavior based on reading even all published papers, just because it is not obviously good like excercises or obviously (heh) bad like smoking.

Br,

Igor

Edited October 28, 2023 by IgorF

[Pablo Stafforini]

On 3/4/2023 at 9:10 AM, InquilineKea said:

Just drink dealcoholized red wine, it's proven to be the besxst

Alcohol is really bad for the brain even if it might be good for the heart

Does anyone have good dealcoholized wine recommendations or a list of relevant considerations to use when deciding what to buy? I vaguely recall Michael Rae noting that he had been unable to find adequate substitutes, many years ago.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Pablo Stafforini

[IgorF]

Hm, from here there are references for some published studies about phenolic content and other subjects of believe behind the plain alcohol effect:

https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/25/18/4105

Actually, like wine itself varies sometime significantly from year to year even for the same technology and grape thus it is rather a waste of time and money to investigate scrupulously the things, but people are doing it so just googling on / dealcoholized wines phenolic content comparison / brings some stuff on the topic.

I personally expect that there should be rather wine powder to concentrate the stuff enough so at least some of it will pass the digestive system because a lot of such stuff will not even enter the circulation if will come from a small amounts of wine. (some info on phenolic enrichment is here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10048746/ - the researchers also using very careful wording about the topic and in the context of taste rather than health benefits, thus they seems more realistic than pro-wine party in this topic).

Br,

Igor

Edited October 30, 2023 by IgorF

[Mike41]

 

 

 

https://substack.com/redirect/9c1ebdbf-5d97-4ec0-9ffb-121949cd97bd?j=eyJ1IjoiY2h4cmgifQ.0IDt0dkm63LzX_vwdJIeCrWraNB5Jd0qYqVdzccfqMw

https://substack.com/redirect/bc8e72c2-e5f5-4602-aaa4-2d5dc1549634?j=eyJ1IjoiY2h4cmgifQ.0IDt0dkm63LzX_vwdJIeCrWraNB5Jd0qYqVdzccfqMw

Edited December 13, 2023 by Mike41

[mccoy]

Mike, have you understood from that article what exactly is a low alcohol intake?

[Mike41]

On 12/14/2023 at 5:12 PM, mccoy said:

Mike, have you understood from that article what exactly is a low alcohol intake?

Of course no more than a drink a day. The fact that low to moderate ALCOHOL is, for the most part, beneficial is all the more reason to drink red wine. Also underreporting is an extreme problem in these studies. Especially occasional, very harmful, binge drinking which is rarely included. People tend to report what they drink “normally”, but do not include occasional binges which can wreak a lot of damage. This indicates that the levels are if anything lower than they should be as to harmful effects. But to me the critical point is that Red Wine has been well established as a healthier carrier of alcohol. It modifies its negative effects and has many verified benefits beyond the alcohol content. That makes this research all the more supportive of a daily 5 oz glass of wine with a meal. Powerful medicine indeed! It should be noted that red wine does not have some of the cancer effects of alcohol in other forms like spirits and beer based on substantial research.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Mike41

[Mike41]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478559/

In summary, our studies reveal that the red wines, particularly mature wines (#1 and #3), dramatically decrease the rates of human cancer cell growth and colony formation, while diluted ethanol at same concentration boosts cell growth. The red wines also cause death of the grew up cancer cells and inhibit Pol III gene transcription. It implies that the red wine may contain some bioactive components and function potential to repress cancer development. Thus, identifying the bioactive components in red wine and enhancing their yielding ratio during producing processes will enhance the quality of red wine, which will benefit people with red wine consumption

Edited February 19 by Mike41

[Ron Put]

As noted before, red wine studies are almost always influenced by the wine industry. Neither the Okinawans nor the Adventists drink red wine, yet they are (or were, in the case of the Okinawas) the longest-living groups in the world.

I used to believe the headlines when younger, then started paying attention to details in the studies, and the final push to almost stop drinking was the tracker data staring me in the face the morning after I had a glass or two. The data after drinking a glass or two of wine basically mirrors the data after eating a couple of slices of rich cake.

I still do both occasionally, but I no longer have illusions that either is beneficial to my health.

[Mike41]

On 2/22/2024 at 1:16 AM, Ron Put said:

As noted before, red wine studies are almost always influenced by the wine industry. Neither the Okinawans nor the Adventists drink red wine, yet they are (or were, in the case of the Okinawas) the longest-living groups in the world.

I used to believe the headlines when younger, then started paying attention to details in the studies, and the final push to almost stop drinking was the tracker data staring me in the face the morning after I had a glass or two. The data after drinking a glass or two of wine basically mirrors the data after eating a couple of slices of rich cake.

I still do both occasionally, but I no longer have illusions that either is beneficial to my health.

I agree Ron that industry influence is a concern, but the evidence for red wine is overwhelming and quite a few solid studies measuring physiology are not industry funded. Red wine is a very unique substance when aged and made properly.

Edited February 25 by Mike41

[mccoy]

Luigi Fontana used to praise the properties of wines like the Sardinian Cannonau, which is high in polyphenols.

I don't know if they drink the same or a similar wine in the Ogliastra region (the blue zone).

2 drinks of these wines may be too much, given their high alcoholic content.

[drewab]

14 hours ago, mccoy said:

Luigi Fontana used to praise the properties of wines like the Sardinian Cannonau, which is high in polyphenols.

I don't know if they drink the same or a similar wine in the Ogliastra region (the blue zone).

2 drinks of these wines may be too much, given their high alcoholic content.

Used to is the key here - he does not anymore and has quit consuming alcohol altogether. 

This is from the comment section included on this video:

 

[mccoy]

Heck, no more Cannonau for Luigi Fontana, Mike, you're going to become a lonely drinker, but I think I'm going to join you occasionally.

I no more drink wine regularly, but when a good bottle hits my table I'll make sure to ascertain its quality.

[mccoy]

19 hours ago, drewab said:

This is from the comment section included on this video:

Also, Mike could test his blood and see if there is any systemic inflammatory response going on, by 2 or 3 of the indexes we know, like C-reactive protein. I don't know how 'chronic wine drinking' is defined in that article.

One more observation: did they use Cannonau in the experiment? Or Sagrantino or Montepulciano d'Abruzzo or one of the other hi-polyphenols varieties of wine?

[Mike41]

Hi McCoy,

your right two drinks is too much. Just go with the good science. It’s a slam dunk that light amounts of quality red wine with a meal is a good habit. YEAH ETHANOL IS A TOXIN. BUT THE POISON IS IN THE DOSE AND THE CONTEXT!!! LOTS OF POISONS IN THE PLANT WORLD ARE AMAZING SUBSTANCES FOR HEALTH IN THE PROPER SETTING, DOSE AND CONTEXT. THE HEADLINES ARE ABOUT ETHANOL. THEY DONT BOTHER DIGGING HARD INTO THE FACTS. SO NOW WE HAVE THIS EVIDENCE ABOUT ETHANOL AND JUST SAY NO TO ANY SOURCE, DOSE OR CONTEXT. TOTALLY MORONIC, BUT ITS THE EASY, LAZY WAY TO JUST MAKE  THE MESSAGE STICK! 
 

ALCHOHOL IS BAD FOR YOU END OF STORY. TOO COMPLEX TO SAY WHAT IS ACTUALLY TRUE. STUDIES LOOK AT DRINKERS AND MANY ARE BINGING OCCASIONALLY AND CLAIMING A DRINK A DAY ETC. WELL WHATS A DRINK?? ITS A MESS. THE LINK OF WINE WITH CANCER IS AGAIN ABOUT HOW MUCH. THE EVIDENCE IS LESS CANCER IF AMOUNTS ARE LIGHT. 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1197745/full