The use of wine and our strong convictions of its health benefits, teetotalers and teetotalers notwithstanding, are probably as old as wine itself, dating back to the earliest civilizations of the ancient world. In Mesopotamia ca. In the 3rd millennium BC, Babylonians believed that wine had medicinal and therapeutic effects and was considered so pure and untainted that it was preferred, along with beer, to water. In Ancient Egypt, over two thousand years BC, wine also became a common ingredient in “prescription drugs” to cure a variety of ailments. The medicines were formulated using also other ingredients, such as water and, in particular, those derived from medicinal plants.
And stories abound from the Far East where the Chinese mixed wine with animal parts to invent drugs to cure almost any ailment. Even Hippocrates, the father of medicine who had a keen sense of the physiological and metabolic reactions in the human body, not only used wine as a prescription medicine in ancient Greece, but also made it an antiseptic for the treatment of wounds. .
The link between wine and its medicinal and therapeutic benefits was strengthened throughout the different eras and from the Middle Ages to modern times. So compelling was the link that, following the decline in the death rate of convicts and immigrants who were treated to wine aboard Australia-bound ships in the early 19th century, it led to the founding of vineyards and wineries. by British doctors in the rest of the century. century. Many of these wineries have become global businesses responsible for some of the largest wine production in the world. For example, Lindemans and Penfolds were founded in the early 1840s by Drs. Henry J. Lindeman and Christopher R. Penfold, respectively.
But as wine became an integral part of religions since Biblical times and the evils of alcohol took root in societies, wine, its health benefits, and sociological impacts became highly controversial, spawning the temperance movement. Against Alcohol in Colonial America. In 1916, federal health authorities removed alcohol from United States Pharmacopeia (USP), “the official public authority that sets standards for all prescription and over-the-counter drugs and other health care products manufactured or sold in the United States.” Then, in 1920, the Volstead Act was enacted under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution making the manufacture, sale, import, and distribution of alcohol illegal, which lasted until 1933 when the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified to repeal Prohibition. National. During Prohibition, the consumption of alcohol and homemade wine for personal use was still permitted, though it was left to individual states and often towns or counties to implement further control according to local needs. Wine for sacramental and medicinal uses was also exempt. In Canada, the provinces had already begun to implement prohibitory laws in 1917.
Much research on the health benefits of wine has been documented, particularly since the 19th century. But the temperance movement had been strong and gained renewed momentum in the 1980s by championing the public health ills of alcohol. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a now highly influential organization, was first founded in 1980. Then, during Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term in the 1980s, First Lady Nancy Reagan launched the drug awareness campaign drugs “Just Say No” which, naturally, included alcoholic beverages. . Senator James Strom Thurmond, whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver in 1993 and whose wife later became addicted to alcohol, was a longtime staunch supporter of the fight against alcohol. He led the offensive responsible for implementing (in 1988) the now-familiar warning on the labels of all wines sold in the US.) The text reads as follows:
GOVERNMENT ADVISORY: (1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy due to the risk of birth defects. (2) Drinking alcoholic beverages affects your ability to drive a car or operate machinery and may cause health problems.
But there was a major twist in 1991 when the French scientist Dr. Serge Renaud released his theory of the French paradox which observed that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), which is the leading cause of death in the countries industrialized. despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fat found, for example, in eggs, dairy products, and particularly cheese and meat. Renaud’s work catapulted sales of red wine in the US and renewed interest in the health benefits of wine when CBS aired his french paradox television segment on 60 minutes that same year. The French paradox, the countless epidemiological studies, and laboratory studies and experiments, such as those of renowned Kaiser-Permanente cardiologist Dr. Arthur Klatsky, make a strong case for J or U-shaped relationships between alcohol consumption and the mortality rate. More specifically, these have shown that moderate alcohol consumption resulted in a lower mortality rate compared to teetotalers and teetotalers or heavy drinkers of alcohol. In addition, moderate consumption has also been linked to a lower morbidity (disease) rate.
Moderate consumption is generally defined as 14 g of pure alcohol (ethanol) per day that can be obtained from 148 ml (5 fl oz) of twelve percent alcohol wine – beware of the “two glasses a day” guideline – or 12 fl oz (355 mL) of five percent alcohol beer or 1½ fl oz (44 mL) of forty percent alcohol liquor. And to enjoy and maximize the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, consumption must be daily and not average, for example, drinking seven times the recommended amount at a Saturday night party, and must be part of a diet balanced and a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise.
Beginning in 1999, wine destined for the US market could be labeled through TTB approval with a directional health-related statement directing consumers to “see [their] Family Physician on the Health Benefits of Wine Consumption” or to order the publication from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans “to know the health effects of wine consumption”. But Senator Thurmond and temperance advocates like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and MADD struck again, effectively forcing the TTB in 2003 to defeat directional label statements on the grounds that they were inherently misleading and misleading and gave the impression that the government endorsed the health benefits of alcohol consumption, which encouraged consumers to drink more. After all, the whole premise of alcohol control is that wine, beer, and distilled spirits have all been considered intoxicants, not drugs.
The wine industry, with the support of trade organizations like the Wine Institute and the American Winemakers Association (AVA), lobbied federal agencies for more substantive health-related claims and reached a compromise of sorts. Hereafter, under the authority of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act), the new TTB regulations provided in part that:
A specific health claim on a label or in an advertisement is considered misleading unless the claim is true and adequately supported by scientific evidence; duly detailed and qualified with respect to the categories of persons to whom the claim applies; adequately discloses the health risks associated with moderate and high levels of alcohol consumption; and describes the categories of people for whom any level of alcohol consumption may cause health risks.
Such requirements have made it nearly impossible to obtain approval to include directional or substantive health claims on labels or in advertisements, particularly that claims must contain a disclaimer “advising consumers that the claim should not encourage alcohol consumption for health reasons,… According to Richard Mendelson in From Darling to Fiend: A Legal History of Wine in Americanot a single health claim has been approved by the TTB since the regulation went into effect.
But there is hope. There has been great progress in the last decade on the health benefits of moderate wine consumption. Although we, except for anti-drinking advocates, have been thirsty for more good news about wine’s role in our health, the research is far from conclusive given the often conflicting findings and range of ailments, diseases and conditions on which the wine is based. it is believed to have effects. The list ranges from heart disease, stroke, cancer, dementia including Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes to arthritis and osteoporosis, and yes, even erectile dysfunction, just to name a few. But naturally, much of the attention has been focused on cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.
In future articles, we’ll examine the science behind the complex interactions between wine and health that are so near and dear to our hearts, literally.
