`The Red Wine Diet' by the
English scientist Roger Corder has been now released. The
author insists that drinking red wine regularly is good
for many diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and
dementia, discloses the Review in Bloomberg.com
 This
is in sharp contrast to another book published 50 years
ago. `The Drinking Man's Diet: How to Lose Weight With a
Minimum of Willpower'' contended that a good weight-loss
program should include a regular two-martini lunch with
steak and Béarnaise sauce. The book sold 2.4 million
copies in 13 languages.
The Red Wine Diet is an extension of a
2006 article in Nature magazine by the 51 year old English
scientist, a cardiovascular expert and professor of therapeutics
at London's William Harvey Research Institute. He had identified
procyanidin, a ``vasoactive polyphenol,'' as the chemical
in wine grapes that helps reduce the risk of coronary heart
disease and overall mortality.
In that article and his new book, he dismisses
earlier studies that suggested a different polyphenol, resveratrol,
is responsible for the so-called French Paradox, by which
the French can consume large amounts of fat and wine yet
have lower rates of heart disease and live longer than Americans.
Corder insists there is so little resveratrol
in wine that you would have to drink hundreds of liters
per day to get any benefit, while half-bottle (375 mL) a
day gives you all the procyanidins you need for the same
effect. That's about three glasses, though two will do the
trick for women.
Tannat Grape
Many of his findings come from a research
trip to Sardinia in 2002 to find out why the natives of
that Mediterranean island had the highest proportion of
centenarians in Europe. He found they drank big, highly
tannic wines, whose Tannat grape was shown to have the highest
concentration of procyanidin of any wine in the world.
He also reports on two small northern Italian
villages, Crevalcore and Montegiorgio, where 97 percent
of the men drink wine only, mostly red.
Corder notes that tannins derived from
aging in oak barrels do nothing to improve health, and he
contends that as wines age procyanidins decrease in the
bottle, but not significantly until 10 years or older.
Despite the arcane chemistry of the subject,
Corder manages to make sense of why we should all be drinking
wine on a daily basis -- not binging -- while never cutting
out good foods. Indeed, without a healthy diet, no amount
of procyanidin will improve your medical prospects.
He also discusses which wines, like Tannat,
are the most beneficial and even recommends specific bottlings
including Malbec Riserva from Argentina and French wines
made with Tannat grapes in Madiran. He also suggests wines
from California and Washington State.
Corder's book is a much-needed and comprehensive
update of the research on a subject not treated in depth
since ``To Your Health: Two Physicians Explore the Health
Benefits of Wine'' by David M. Whitten and Martin R. Lipp,
13 years ago, says the reviewer.
For a confirmed wine drinker, ``The Red Wine Diet'' is an
easy book to love.. If Corder had his way, he would print
wine's health benefits right on the label.
``I see no reason why in the future it
should not be a legal requirement to include a statement
of procyanidin content,'' he writes. ``I predict that sooner
or later we will be told exactly which healthful benefits
we can expect from a glass of wine.''
Delwine had already previewed
the book on August 21 where we had suggested that the Tannat
from Uruguay would also be a healthy wine to drink since
they are still into traditonal methods without too much
oak. Argentina, Peru and the US are other countries which
are making wines with Tannat.
For our earlier report titled- Study identifies
red wine grapes, please visit
http://www.indianwineacademy.com
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