Glass Of Red Wine Research Articles

Wine is more than just a beverage: Chemical diversity, health benefits, and immunomodulating potential of wine polyphenols

AbstractWine, the fermented juice of the grape (Vitis vinifera), is a complex beverage composed primarily of water and ethanol. On the other hand, phenolic compounds are less abundant components that participate in taste and color formation. In addition to their major role in the sensory profile of wine, phenolic compounds (also referred as polyphenols) function through various mechanisms, exerting positive influence on health. According to recent research, consuming just one glass of red wine positively contributes to health protection, and it is connected to the maintenance of the redox endothelial balance, potential for reducing diabetes occurrence, preventing atherosclerosis, and reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. What is more, a lower incidence of certain types of cancers has also been observed. The health promoting benefits of wine are explained by its wide spectrum of structurally diverse phenolic compounds whose content may depend on numerous factors. The most abundant compounds are anthocyanins with up to 400 mg/L, followed by phenolic acids, flavanols, flavonols, hydrolyzable tannins, flavanones, and stilbenes (up to 200, 120, 60, 50, 25, and 5 mg/L, respectively). This review paper outlines the structural variety, health advantages, and immunomodulatory capacity of wine polyphenols, drawing upon the latest and most pertinent scientific literature available in this domain.

The Dead Children

The Dead Children Sabina Murray (bio) You said it was his heart?" she asked. "A massive coronary. Surprised everyone." "That is very sad," Judith said. She hadn't known Anton Galchek well, but anyone's death was sobering. Judith nodded, signaling an end to the conversation, although that seemed an elevated term for their exchange. It was a Friday, 5 p.m., and already dark. The department meeting had been mercifully short and other faculty members lingered chatting on the library steps, as if the half hour handed back to them needed to be immediately squandered. Some of the younger instructors would, no doubt, be heading for a drink at one of the local bars, but they wouldn't ask her to join. And she wouldn't go anyway. There was a detective show that she was slowly working through on Netflix and that was calling to her, but perhaps she'd stop by her office and finish the last three papers that needed grading. Then tomorrow would be free, and she could use the time to get a jump on her paper, a fluff piece on servants—Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca and Mrs. Grose from Turn of the Screw—that she was presenting at an on-campus symposium the following semester. Also, Judith was not quite ready to go home. She crossed the quad to Carew Hall, noting the drop in temperature. Somewhere, a wood fire was burning and the scent of it tinged the air. A smell like that could use a glass of red wine, she thought. Judith had just fished her ID out of her wallet and was touching it to the security pad to let her into the building, when she heard the woman call out. "Judie," came the woman's voice, "Judie Denlow." Judith had turned, alarmed by two intimacies: the first, her name shortened to Judie, the second, the Australian accent. The woman was standing half-lit in the streaming lamplight. She was wearing a knee-length floral dress, a coat of hard tweed, and sensible shoes. A sensible black handbag hung on her shoulder. "Do we know each other?" Judith asked. "We did," she said. The woman must have been near 70. And there was something familiar about her, which Judith found unsettling. "How can I help you?" "I'm not sure you can," said the woman. "It has been a long time, but [End Page 71] you two were so close. She'd be your age now, although I don't think she'd be a professor. You were always the more clever of the two. The cleverest girl in the school. Everyone thought so." But not pretty, not nice. She did know this woman, although it had been 40 years since she'd seen her. Judith was flooded with cold, unforgiving adrenaline. "Mrs. Begley, am I right?" said Judith. "That's right," said the woman, but she made no move to come closer, just stood washed by light, her bare face raised with an accusing vulnerability. "What brings you to Vermont?" "I wanted to see the sights," said Mrs. Begley. "And is the college one of them?" Judith forced a smile. "No. Actually, I just wanted to see you." The woman held her eyes, unblinking. Perhaps a cup of tea would do it. Just some tea, a little reminiscence of her childhood in Perth, and then the woman would be on her way. But where? The two restaurants that doubled as coffee shops and bars would no doubt be bustling because of the meeting, and Judith had no desire to be sitting with this odd relic of her childhood under the watchful gaze of her colleagues. "Where are you staying?" asked Judith. "Are you at the hotel?" "Yes. It's very nice," said Mrs. Begley. "Perhaps I could make us some tea at home, and then drop you after? I do have some grading, but it would be a shame not to catch up, if only for an hour." "That's very kind of you," said the woman. But her eyes had narrowed when Judith indicated that their proceedings would be finite, that she had an hour but no...

Pharmacopoeia: Illness narratives.

Pharmacopoeia: Illness narratives.

Charles Bowden Saying Yes

Charles Bowden Saying Yes* Aengus Anderson (bio) December 12, 2012, was one of those bright winter days where the sun seems to bleed the landscape of color, leaving Las Cruces, in my memory, as little more than a sequence of drab boxes under a chalky sky. It was early afternoon and Charles Bowden was reclining in a chair, glass of red wine in hand, looking out a large window and telling me about birds. Not knowing where his story would go, I rushed to set up my recording gear. Most interviews are narrow and targeted. Often, they have a subject that you can meaningfully explore within the confines of a magazine article or a four-minute radio story. The interview that follows is nothing like that, so it deserves a little bit of context. I am an independent radio producer and I had come to Las Cruces to ask Chuck three questions: What is the crisis of the present, assuming there is one? What would a better future look like? What beliefs led to your definition of "the good"? Those questions were the core of The Conversation, a podcast I produced from 2012 to 2016. The Conversation was motivated by a long-standing personal belief that our institutions and social norms have fallen far out of step with the realities of our world, from economics to the environment. This belief made me wonder about how large systems of thought change, so I launched The Conversation with a conjecture: There are moments in history when status quo ideas fail to address a society's changing needs. This failure usually ends badly but, despite that, some historians will see an efflorescence of new ideas amidst the chaos. For some of the best transformative moments, think of the intellectual ferment of classical Greece, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, or the American Revolution, all of which saw the birth of ideas that [End Page 188] seemed radical to contemporaries and natural to later generations. I was interested in those moments. Were they real or the constructions of excitable historians? And if they were real, could we be living in one? Did we need to be? To explore the idea, I traveled America and recorded in-person interviews with a cross-section of our most interesting thinkers. Some resonated with me personally and influence my thought to this day, such as Wes Jackson of the Land Institute, artist Frances Whitehead, or ecological philosopher Timothy Morton. Others challenged my assumptions, such as Max Moore, who runs the cryonics facility Alcor Life Extension, or Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society, who was one of the strongest techno-utopian voices in the series. I tried to steer away from the most obvious pundits and celebrity-intellectuals because, I reasoned, they had platforms already and were unlikely to want to mar their chiseled public images by veering off script for an interview about a raft of subjects outside of their expertise or their deepest personal beliefs. The interviews were open-ended, oscillating between the global and the personal. These sorts of sprawling, uninhibited conversations about our collective future are taboo in the media—they're too long for our attention span, too technical for our facile understanding of the world, and too vague to be reduced to a few pithy lessons from a TED talk. They also seem embarrassingly naïve, an activity best left to the smoke-filled dorm rooms of college students. But the big conversation about our future and our beliefs is just as important today as at the most fraught moments of our past. After almost nine months and sixty interviews, I felt that The Conversation needed Chuck Bowden. Many of my other interviewees lived in major cities and thought about the world from within the cocoons of corporations, nonprofits, or academic institutions. True, some of them were concerned about poverty, violence, or the economic casualties of the global economy, but they were all a long way from Juárez. I wanted Chuck's voice in the project, not because I didn't value the other contributions, but because I hoped he would stride through the series like an Old Testament prophet, yelling about what...

Collected Poems by Dennis O'Driscoll

Reviewed by: Collected Poems by Dennis O'Driscoll Joseph Heininger Collected Poems, by Dennis O'Driscoll, pp. 544. Manchester,: Carcanet, 2017. Distributed by Independent Publishers Group, Chicago. £19.99 The late Dennis O'Driscoll's poetry resonates with his undiminished physical and spiritual engagement with the world, his perceptions of the fraying contours and the anomie of contemporary lives, and most notably, his freedom from fashionable idioms and ideas, which made him a necessary presence in the world of poetry and beyond. A theme he sounded frequently in mid-career, as in Exemplary Damages (2002), is his sense of loss and bewilderment at the perceived withdrawal of the sacred from contemporary lives ("Our one true God has died, vanished under / a rainbow's arch, banished like a devil / scalded by holy water; but our lives remain / eternally precious in the eyes of man.") In O'Driscoll's unobtrusive free-verse idiom, the poignant laments that characterize the images and insights of the litany-poem "Missing God" feature unwished-for departures and irreparable losses. Here are representative stanzas from the middle of the poem: Miss Him when we exclaim His namespontaneously in awe or angeras a woman in a birth wardcries out to her long-dead mother. Miss Him when the linen-covereddining table holds warm bread rolls,shiny glasses of red wine. [End Page 158] Several later poems, such as "Petition" and "The Power and the Glory" together with the familiar, chaffing tone of "Update" elaborate these God-haunted themes. Philip Larkin is often proposed as a close artistic figure for O'Driscoll. But one might also nominate Hopkins, Eliot, and Auden, as well as such contemporary poets as Christian Wiman and Mark Jarman, who share O'Driscoll's spirit-touched sensibility and represent the imagery and ideas of belief and loss of belief in their poetry. When he published the fifty-stanza free verse sequence "The Bottom Line" in 1994, O'Driscoll anticipated our fantasies of pleasant, cost-free strolls along electronic avenues and the consequent mental freeing of the preoccupied citizens of our democracies. Instead, the poet knew well to represent the petty behavior, the bottom-line-driven ethos that causes the redundancy of many, including the once-dominant sales rep, and how all economic activity is orchestrated by charmless drivers of profit. "The Bottom Line" captures this downward pull into oblivion: The white-cuffed sales rep, guardingterritory, does not add up in the ageof central warehousing; the few we stillkeep on are doomed: jaunty, over-groomed men,sharing jokes and samples at the check-outs,waiting for a brisk assistant managerto deign to acknowledge their existence, Although the poem's enjambed lines offer a thread of connection by means of technique, it portrays the new dispensation in which the sales reps cannot enact the familiar pattern of "guarding / territory." Especially in the workplace poems, O'Driscoll described our anxious age and prophesied many of the fault lines of the screen-besotted, over-hurried era in which we live. Often, his poems attend to the pleasant rituals or the worrisome rhythms of dailiness, with their imperfect efforts and frustrated human hopes. In Quality Time, such poems as "You," "Reading the Signs," "Time Check," and "Talking Shop" announce themes and tropes he would revisit, such as the circumscribed world of a shopkeeper: "Finally, having wound the shutter down again, / the life he leads is his business exclusively. / Perpetual light shines on the manual cash box." The wordplay in the line "the life he leads is his business exclusively" allows us to see the irony and the dread in his maintaining such a closed-up stance toward life. In the religiously inflected poems, especially from Dear Life (2012) and Update (2014), O'Driscoll portrays the problems of individual and cultural belief, and loss of belief, in a transcendent God. He seeks expression and further experience of what Jurgen Habermas has called "An Awareness of What is Missing" in a spiritual life that now faces a mainly secular [End Page 159] and solipsistic age. The evidence of his poetry and the searching interviews with Seamus Heaney he collected in Stepping Stones (2008), show...

Thomas Stuttaford: media doctor and celebrity patient

Credit: Neil Spence/Alamy Thomas Stuttaford was the medical correspondent and columnist for the Times newspaper for over 25 years. He was also an MP, medical adviser to Conservative Central Office,...

Observational case-control study about the adherence to the Mediterranean diet in elderly oncological patients in Salento

Background: Mediterranean Diet (MD) is the only alimentary model that could prevent degenerative chronic disease and cancer. We analyzed the alimentary habits of elderly oncological patients (pts), compared to healthy elderly pts, to evaluate the correlation between the adherence to MD and cancer development, due to the high incidence of tumor in Salento. Matherials (patients) and methods: 293 (155 males, 138 females) oncological pts (=70 years) were enrolled in the Oncology Unit of Vito Fazzi Hospital in Lecce and 135 elderly pts (=70 years) without cancer diagnosis. Predimed test was used to evaluate the alimentary habits and to define the adherence to MD, using 14 questions (score 0-14). A value =7 was estimated as low adherence, 8-9 as median adherence, =10 as high adherence. Oncological pts showed the subsequent diagnosis: lung, prostate, breast, urinary tract, gastric, colorectal cancer. Results: The main fat sauce in diet is extra-virgin olive oil (98% of pts). 37% of pts eat almost 2 times/die vegatables and 50% almost 3 times/die fruit. 71% of pts eat less that 1 time/die red meat, hamburger and sausages and 86% eat less than 1 time/die butter, margarine or cooking cream. During a week, 43% of pts drink > 7 glasses of red wine, 22% eat 3 times legumes and 15% eat fish more than 3 times. 44% eat less han 3 times/week cakes and 34% eat dried fruit. 59% eat white meal and 90% eat more than 2 times/week vegatables, pasta or rice. Low adherence to MD is showed for oncological pts and healthy pts in 46% and 15% respectively, median adherence 25% and 48%, high adherence 28% and 36%. Conclusions: In healthy pts a higher adherence to MD was observed and they eat more vegetables, fruit and red wine, compared to oncological pts. Both pts groups eat low quantity of fish and legumes. Pts with urinary tract cancer shows a diet rich of vegetables (more than 2 times every day): this could be related to the ingestion of pesticides used in farming. Gastric cancer pts showed a low use of onion and garlic, so an protective role in development of this disease is confirmed (as previously demonstrated in literature). Healthy women drink more red wine than breast cancer pts: red wine polyphenols could prevent the breast cancer disease. The results of this study suggests that could be a relationship between the adherence to MD and the incidence of tumor, but further studies, in a several number of pts, are necessary to confirm this hipothesys.

The effect of alcohol and red wine consumption on clinical and MRI outcomes in multiple sclerosis

BackgroundAlcohol and in particular red wine have both immunomodulatory and neuroprotective properties, and may exert an effect on the disease course of multiple sclerosis (MS). ObjectiveTo assess the association between alcohol and red wine consumption and MS course. MethodsMS patients enrolled in the Comprehensive Longitudinal Investigation of Multiple Sclerosis at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (CLIMB) who completed a self-administered questionnaire about their past year drinking habits at a single time point were included in the study. Alcohol and red wine consumption were measured as servings/week. The primary outcome was the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) at the time of the questionnaire. Secondary clinical outcomes were the Multiple Sclerosis Severity Score (MSSS) and number of relapses in the year before the questionnaire. Secondary MRI outcomes included brain parenchymal fraction and T2 hyperintense lesion volume (T2LV). Appropriate regression models were used to test the association of alcohol and red wine intake on clinical and MRI outcomes. All analyses were controlled for sex, age, body mass index, disease phenotype (relapsing vs. progressive), the proportion of time on disease modifying therapy during the previous year, smoking exposure, and disease duration. In the models for the MRI outcomes, analyses were also adjusted for acquisition protocol. Results923 patients (74% females, mean age 47 ± 11 years, mean disease duration 14 ± 9 years) were included in the analysis. Compared to abstainers, patients drinking more than 4 drinks per week had a higher likelihood of a lower EDSS score (OR, 0.41; p = 0.0001) and lower MSSS (mean difference, − 1.753; p = 0.002) at the time of the questionnaire. Similarly, patients drinking more than 3 glasses of red wine per week had greater odds of a lower EDSS (OR, 0.49; p = 0.0005) and lower MSSS (mean difference, − 0.705; p = 0.0007) compared to nondrinkers. However, a faster increase in T2LV was observed in patients consuming 1–3 glasses of red wine per week compared to nondrinkers. ConclusionsHigher total alcohol and red wine intake were associated with a lower cross-sectional level of neurologic disability in MS patients but increased T2LV accumulation. Further studies should explore a potential cause-effect neuroprotective relationship, as well as the underlying biological mechanisms.

32-Year-Old-Woman With Abdominal Pain

32-Year-Old-Woman With Abdominal Pain

Wine’s time: duration, attunement, and diffraction

Time, if addressed through non-linear and speculative perspectives concerned by aesthetics and aesthetic objects, is a promising space to develop a fresh approach to perception. That is, that the emergence of perception is embedded in material relations. Here, we take the scenario of two people sharing a glass of red wine to demonstrate how the concatenation of material events sets the rhythm that creates the sensation of time passing. In doing so, we aim to explore what processes and events within the sharing of wine partake in the perception of time and allow the sensation of time passing be a shared experience. We begin with the notion of “Duration” proposed by Henri Bergson as a philosophical framework to explore the material bases of the process of perception, specifically the concrete perception of time passing. Then, to point out the possibilities of an empirical analysis concerned with multiple scales of reality, we turn to advances in affect studies and new materialism. Specifically, we draw on the notion of “diffraction” as proposed by Karen Barad to explore cross-modal interchanges of properties at the quantum scale, and the idea of “attunement” inspired by the work of developmental psychologist Daniel Stern to address the scale of organic social interaction.

In Memoriam: Hanneke De Boer (1946-2015).

In Memoriam: Hanneke De Boer (1946-2015).

Haoshen Zhou

Angewandte Chemie International EditionVolume 55, Issue 6 p. 1956-1956 Author ProfileFree Access Haoshen Zhou First published: 11 November 2015 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201508282AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Graphical Abstract “In a spare hour, I enjoy a good glass of red wine and Bill Evans. My biggest inspiration is my family. ...” This and more about Haoshen Zhou can be found on page 1956. 1 Table 1. Haoshen Zhou Date of birth: October 29, 1964 Position: Professor, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, and Nanjing University E-mail: hs.zhou@aist.go.jp; hszhou@nju.edu.cn Homepage: https://unit.aist.go.jp/ieco/ Education: 1985 BS, Physics Department, Nanjing University 1994 PhD with Prof. Hiroshi Komiyama, The University of Tokyo 1994–1997 Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Hiroyuki Sasabe, RIKEN Research: Energy technology; energy transfer; energy storage materials and devices; rechargeable batteries; fuel cells; solar cells Hobbies: History, reading, walking, traveling, playing the game of Go My favorite painter is Pablo Picasso. My favorite book is The Complete Sherlock Holmes. If I had one year of paid leave I would spend more time with my family. The principal aspects of my personality are precision and diligence. When I was eighteen I wanted to be a historian. My favorite drinks are water and tea. The most important future applications of my research are electric vehicles and smart grids for energy storage. In a spare hour, I read historical articles or novels. If I could be any age, I would be a university student. I could take interesting courses not only in physics, chemistry, and engineering, but also in history, sociology, and art. My biggest inspiration is discussions with my students and colleagues. My favorite time of day is morning. I admire the use of a simple concept to solve a complex problem. My favorite way to spend a holiday is traveling with my wife and reading her poems, prose, and essays. My science “heroes” are every young student. All of you can be science “heroes” if you enjoy discovery. My 5 top papers: References 1“A reversible long-life lithium–air battery in ambient air”: T. Zhang, H. Zhou, Nat. Commun. 2013, 4, 1817. (A non-aqueous Li–air battery based on the electrochemical reaction of O2 and CO2 in air shows a stable cycling performance.) 2“The water catalysis at oxygen cathodes of lithium–oxygen cells”: F. Li, S. Wu, D. Li, T. Zhang, P. He, A. Yamada, H. Zhou, Nat. Commun. 2015, 6, 7843. (The use of water as a catalyst results in an extremely low overpotential of about 0.21 V.) 3“An Ultrastable Anode for Long-Life Room-Temperature Sodium-Ion Batteries”: H. Yu, Y. Ren, D. Xiao, S. Guo, Y. Zhu, Y. Qian, L. Gu, H. Zhou, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 8963; Angew. Chem. 2014, 126, 9109. (The layered sodium oxide Na2/3Co1/3Ti2/3O2 is a stable anode active material.) 4“A Layered P2 and O3-type Composite as a High-Energy Cathode for Rechargeable Sodium-Ion Batteries”: S. Guo, P. Liu, H. Yu, Y. Zhu, M. Chen, M. Ishida, H. Zhou, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 5894; Angew. Chem. 2015, 127, 5992. (The structure of the material was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and (S)TEM images.) 5“Integrating a Photocatalyst into a Hybrid Lithium–Sulfur Battery for Direct Storage of Solar Energy”: N. Li, Y. Wang, D. Tang, H. Zhou, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 9271; Angew. Chem. 2015, 127, 9403. (Solar energy is captured and stored by oxidizing S2− ions to polysulfide ions.) Volume55, Issue6February 5, 2016Pages 1956-1956 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Andreas Marx

Andreas Marx

Assessing the aftermath of an alcohol-fueled weekend: Alcohol-induced DNA damage and faulty repairs may raise the risk of certain cancers, but resveratrol could provide some relief.

Assessing the aftermath of an alcohol-fueled weekend: Alcohol-induced DNA damage and faulty repairs may raise the risk of certain cancers, but resveratrol could provide some relief.

“My midwife said that having a glass of red wine was actually better for the baby”: a focus group study of women and their partner’s knowledge and experiences relating to alcohol consumption in pregnancy

BackgroundWhile it is well established that alcohol can cross the placenta to the foetus and can affect an infant’s development, many women continue to drink during pregnancy. For this reason it is important to determine what information is being provided, what information may be missing, and the preferred sources of information on this issue. In order to improve prevention strategies, we sought to understand the knowledge and experiences of pregnant women and their partners regarding the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.MethodsThe current study utilised a qualitative study design in order to gain insight into the views and experiences of pregnant women, newly delivered mothers and their partners. Focus groups examined the participant’s knowledge about the effects of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, the sources of information on this issue, and the psycho-social influences on their drinking behaviour. Five focus groups were conducted involving a total of 21 participants (17 female). A six-stage thematic analysis framework was used to analyse all focus group discussions in a systematic way.ResultsSeven major themes were identified from the focus group data: 1) knowledge of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders; 2) message content and sources; 3) healthcare system; 4) society and culture; 5) partner role; 6) evaluation of risk; and 7) motivation. The findings indicated that although the majority of participants knew not to drink alcohol in pregnancy they had limited information on the specific harmful effects. In addition, routine enquiry and the provision of information by health care professionals were seen as lacking.ConclusionsThe findings of this research provide important insights in to the relationship between pregnant women, their partners, and their healthcare providers. Several recommendations can be made on the basis of these findings. Firstly, public health messages and educational materials need to provide clear and consistent information about the effects of alcohol consumption on the developing baby. Additionally, more thorough and consistent routine enquiry for alcohol consumption in pregnant women needs to occur. Finally, it is important to ensure ongoing education for health professionals on the issue of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

Wine, alcohol and pills: What future for the French paradox?

The present review discusses the acquisitions obtained to date on the subject of wine consumption, health and cardiovascular protection. We distinguished the cardiovascular effects related to the consumption of wine and other alcoholic beverages focusing on non-alcoholic wine fraction: polyphenols and especially resveratrol. In the second part of the review we have addressed the issue of resveratrol bioavailability and the importance of wine matrix and phytocomplex highlighting the biological effects that can be obtained with nutraceuticals and resveratrol pills compared to the daily consumption of a glass of red wine.

Arterial compliance may be reduced by ingestion of red wine.

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of alcohol on blood pressure and arterial compliance over 24 h in a group of volunteers, comparing the same group of subjects on two consecutive but separate days, one with alcohol intake (alcohol day) and one free of alcohol (control day). We studied 18 healthy subjects (mean age 34.2 years, range 25-53). The subjects received the two days in random order. On the alcohol day, the subjects were asked to drink two glasses of red wine (12% ethanol) between 1830 hours and 0430 hours. Measurements of heart rate, blood pressure and QKD interval (Q wave to Korotkoff (K) sound, diastolic phase (D) using Diasys Integra (Novacor, France)) were recorded (usually 1500 hours to 1500 hours). Three 'ingestion' periods were defined, from 1500 hours to 1830 hours ('before'), 1900 hours to 0430 hours ('during') and from 0430 hours to the following afternoon ('after') on both the alcohol day and on the control day. Red wine increased heart rate during alcohol ingestion and reduced arterial compliance after ingestion. The significant effect of interaction between day and ingestion period on heart rate, diastolic blood pressure and QKD were found, suggesting that the differences in response among the ingestion periods depended on whether alcohol has been consumed that day. For the first time our study indicates the effect of alcohol on 24 h arterial stiffness in a healthy group of volunteers.

Nancy Kishlar Mello.

Nancy Kishlar Mello.

A large sample study on the influence of the multisensory environment on the wine drinking experience

BackgroundWe report on what may well be the world’s largest multisensory tasting experiment. Over a period of 4 days in May 2014, almost 3,000 people sampled a glass of red wine in a room in which the colour of the lighting and/or the music was changed repeatedly. The participants rated the wine, presented in a black tasting glass, on taste, intensity and liking scales while standing in each of four different environments over a period of 7 to 8 minutes. During the first 2 days (Experiment 1), the participants rated the wine while exposed to white lighting, red lighting, green lighting with music designed to enhance sourness and finally under red lighting paired with music associated with sweetness. During the latter 2 days of the event (Experiment 2), the same wine was rated under white lighting, green lighting, red lighting with sweet music and finally green lighting with sour music.ResultsIn Experiment 1, the wine was perceived as fresher and less intense under green lighting and sour music, as compared to any of the other three environments. On average, the participants liked the wine most under red lighting while listening to sweet music. A similar pattern of results was reported in Experiment 2.ConclusionsThese results demonstrate that the environment can exert a significant influence on the perception of wine (at least in a random sample of social drinkers). We outline a number of possible explanations for how the sensory properties of the environment might influence the perception of wine. Finally, we consider some of the implications of these results for the wine drinking experience.

Advice on Lifestyle Changes (Diet, Red Wine and Physical Activity) Does Not Affect Internal Carotid and Middle Cerebral Artery Blood Flow Velocity in Patients with Carotid Arteriosclerosis in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: A Mediterranean diet, with and without small daily amounts of red wine, and physical activity reduce the risk of cerebrovascular disease and improve cognition. An increase in cerebral blood flow may be the underlying mechanism. Under normal conditions, cerebral blood flow velocity changes in the internal carotid arteries and in large basal cerebral arteries correlate closely with cerebral blood flow changes, as the diameter of these vessels hardly changes and only the smaller vessels downstream change their diameter. Methods: A prospective randomized controlled trial was performed in 108 patients with carotid atherosclerosis (mean age 64 years, 67% men, 66% on statin therapy). Half of them were advised to follow a polyphenol-rich modified Mediterranean diet including 1-2 tomatoes, 3-5 walnuts and a bar of dark chocolate (25 g) a day and to perform moderate physical exercise for 30 min/day (lifestyle changes). Within these two groups, half of the patients were randomized either to avoid any alcohol or to drink 100 ml of red wine (women) or 200 ml of red wine (men) daily. Bilateral middle cerebral and internal carotid blood flow velocity (peak systolic, peak end-diastolic and mean) was measured at baseline and after 4 and 20 weeks using colour-coded duplex ultrasound. Insonation depth and insonation angle were used to identically place the sample volume during follow-up investigations. A general linear model with Tukey-Kramer adjustment for multiple comparisons was used to assess the primary end points. For the analysis we used the mean values of the right and left artery. Results: Neither lifestyle changes nor red wine had an effect on peak systolic, peak end-diastolic or mean cerebral blood flow velocity. Conclusions: Advice on lifestyle changes, including a modified polyphenol-rich Mediterranean diet, a glass of red wine daily and physical exercise, did not affect middle cerebral and internal carotid blood flow velocity in our patient group with carotid atherosclerosis. An increase in cerebral blood flow is thus unlikely to be the cause of the reduced risk of cerebrovascular disease and improved cognitive functioning described in the literature. One possible explanation for the fact that blood flow velocity was not affected by red wine, diet and physical activity advice is that two thirds of our patients were already on statin therapy. Statins increase cerebral blood flow and vasomotor reactivity via nitric oxide.