Light and moderate consumption of wine is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular complications, according to a multicentre study led by researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBEROBN) and the University of Navarra (UNAV). The study, published in the European Heart Journal , is based on the analysis of a biomarker of wine intake - specifically, tartaric acid, present in grapes. It was carried out in 1,232 participants in the PREDIMED project, a major scientific epidemiological study in nutrition on the effects of the Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular health.According to the researchers, "there is no doubt that excessive alcohol consumption has serious health consequences. However, the effects of moderate and responsible wine consumption are still the subject of debate in the scientific community. The results of this study and others should help to place moderate wine consumption in its rightful place as an element of the Mediterranean diet, considered to be the healthiest in the world".
The principal authors of the study are the researcher Inés Domínguez, from the UB's Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences and the Nutrition and Food Safety Research Institute ( INSA ); Professor Ramon Estruch, from the UB's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and IDIBAPS; Rosa María Lamuela, professor and ICREA Academia, and member of INSA, and Professor Miguel Ángel Martínez, from the University of Navarra (UNAV); all members of CIBEROBN.
Controversy over the effects of wine
Today, there is much controversy about the health effects of moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages in general and wine in particular. Ramon Estruch stresses that "part of this debate is due to conflicting results of studies that have pointed to a protective effect of wine, while others have found no such effect". These differences could be explained by possible errors in wine consumption records. "Epidemiological studies assessing the role of wine in the rate of cardiovascular events are often based on self-reported information on wine consumption. These are reliable data, but subject to measurement errors due to inaccurate recall or biased perceptions about the social desirability of drinking alcoholic beverages", he explains. In response to this problem, the researchers in this study measured wine consumption by means of food intake frequency surveys, which they confirmed with an objective biomarker: the concentration found in urine of tartaric acid, a molecule produced mainly in grapes and rarely synthesized by other plant species.
