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Wine Therapy - StarGate Nutrition
Man has been consuming wine for over 10,000 years and has been using it as a medicine for over 5,000 years and wine is in fact man's oldest form of preventative medicine. Hippocrates, the most famous of the ancient physicians had this to say about wine; 'wine is fit for man in a wonderful way provided that it is taken with good sense by the sick as well as the healthy', and Paracelsus, the father of modern pharmacology, said 'whether wine is a medicine, nourishment or poison is a matter of dosage'. The UK has already become the biggest consumer of wine among non-producer countries, drinking the equivalent of 1.3bn bottles of wine in 2001 and with good reason. French doctors in particular have wine prescribing down to a fine art. There have also been studies done in Europe and the United States that suggest responsible wine drinkers are some of the healthiest people in the Western world. They are less likely to develop heart disease and other conditions that may reduce the life expectancy of nondrinkers. Different wines have different characteristics - just as different patients have different maladies. Long before the dawn of penicillin, tranquillizers, sleeping pills, antidepressants, painkillers and appetite suppressants, doctors were prescribing wines. In fact some patients in certain French hospital wards have been given champagne to combat depression. The most notable example of wines use is in the five ways it helps to prevent heart disease. Firstly, it lowers low-density lipoprotein, the 'bad cholesterol', so there are less fatty deposits available to form athermatous plaque. Secondly, it raises the high-density lipoprotein or 'good cholesterol' from the artery wall by taking it back to the liver to be metabolized and reused. Thirdly, wine has very strong antioxidants. They are five times stronger than vitamin E, the usual benchmark antioxidant. These strong antioxidants inhibit 'bad cholesterol' from being incorporated into the blood vessel wall, thus preventing the formation of atheromatous plaque. Fourthly wine acts as an anti-coagulant, which stops the blood from forming clots and fifthly because wine is able to relax you, it also reduces a persons stress levels. Latest research has also shown other vascular diseases benefit from moderate wine consumption. The rate of deep vein thrombosis, or clotting in the leg, can be reduced by up to fifty percent. Wine can also reverse the diseases osteoporosis and dementia and the rate of macular degeneration, an incurable form of blindness, in particular can be reduced by up to twenty percent. Half of all renal failure is caused by vascular disease that can be reduced and prevented by wine therapy.
Scientists at the University of Milan under the direction of Alberto Bertelli have shown that ‘resveratrol’ a component of wine triggers a neural enzyme that stimulates nerve cells and helps them to regenerate, by up to sevenfold. Researchers found that the resveratrol made the human nerve cells grow extensions, which enabled them to connect to neighbouring nerve cells. This helps explain why wine drinkers have less of the neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (commonest cause of dementia) and Parkinson's disease. In neurodegenerative diseases these connections break down. "By daily reinforcing these contacts we can prevent neurodegeneration", Dr. Bertelli has stated. Consuming wine in moderation would also mean that the vascular tree within the brain would be less diseased and hence be able to supply the brain's nerves with more blood containing essential oxygen and glucose. This is another mechanism by which wine helps the brain to function better. So wine in moderation could be referred to as "brain food" or "brain friendly" as it prevents strokes and nerve cell degeneration, which is in marked contrast to what was previously thought about the effects of any form of alcohol on the brain Wine contains 600 definable nutrients that can be scientifically measured and its consumption is known to stimulate the production of digestive juices that help digest food. Indigestion is alleviated by consumption of champagnes as the potassium tartate that they contain helps to tone and contract the fibres of the intestinal muscle walls. For acidic stomachs drink wines low in acidity and high in calcium content such as Anjou or the Saumurois. Sweet Anjou wines relieve constipation the same way that Epsom salts do - without the effect or mouth taste. Medoc wines help diarrhoea through their high tannin content which tones up the intestinal wall. Circulation Two of the main vitamins in red wine namely vitamin C and vitamin P (bioflavanoids) maintain the optimum health of the blood vessels. The minerals also help magnesium especially exercises anti-coagulant effects and prevents the formation of vascular thrombosis. Potassium in the form of bitartrate dilates the blood vessels reducing high blood pressure it also restores tone and contractility to the heart muscles. Bordeaux wines are recommended for circulation with St Emilion wines delivering extra minerals. Arthritis For rheumatoid arthritis wines high in the mineral sulphur impart the benefits from sulpuric baths. So try the white Alsace. Osteoarthritis caused by a lack of mineral salts can be helped by the consumption of Corbieres wines that is particularly rich in manganese oxide which slows down the progress of joint disorders.