Abstract
Wine has been popular worldwide for many centuries and currently remains an important component of our diet. Scientific interest in wine and its health effects has grown considerably since the 1990s with the emergence of the “French Paradox” concept, correlating moderate wine consumption, a characteristic of the Mediterranean diet, and low incidence of coronary heart diseases. Since then, the positive effects on health, health promotion, disease prevention, and disease prognosis of moderate wine consumption, in particular red wine, have been attributed to its polyphenolic compounds such as resveratrol, quercetin, and other flavonoids acting as antioxidants. Several epidemiological, in vivo and in vitro, studies have reported that moderate red wine or red wine polyphenolic extract consumption may be active in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, degenerative pathologies, and cancer. The aim of this review is to summarize the current findings about the effects of red wine polyphenols on cancer and to discuss how the polyphenolic composition of red wine may influence its chemopreventive properties.
Highlights
Wine has been produced since the beginnings of civilization, presumably starting in the NearEast; traces are found in the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, and in Assyrian bas-reliefs
Colorectal and prostate cancers are not the only ones that can be affected by the action of wine polyphenol extracts; many other studies have shown an induction of apoptosis and a modulation of the protein that controls either oxidative stress or the cell cycle on many models, such as breast cancer [74] and leukemias [75]
Much effort has been extended to characterize and understand the complex composition of wines, in particular red wine, whose polyphenol content is highly dependent on winemaking processes, the type of vine, climate, country, and the age of the wine
Summary
Wine has been produced since the beginnings of civilization, presumably starting in the Near. In France, as compared with other western countries with a fat-containing diet, the strikingly low incidence of coronary heart diseases is partly attributed to the moderate consumption of red wine [3]. This is how what was commonly called the “French paradox” was born. The MONICA study has shown that in France, as compared with other western countries (such as the UK or the US), despite a fat-containing diet, a strikingly low incidence of coronary heart diseases was observed and is partly attributed to the moderate consumption of red wine [7,8,9]. Various studies have been conducted to determine the effect of different preparations enriched with wine polyphenol or polyphenol grape extracts on various pathologies such as cardiovascular [21,22], ocular [23], inflammatory and age-related degenerative diseases [24,25], and cancers [26,27] (Figure 1)
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