The “news cycle” in these days of the Internet and social media sometimes goes in circles, as it did today when someone, somewhere posted a link to a 2009 New York Daily News article that quoted a 2009 U.K. Daily Mail article that quoted a 2009 medical study about red wine and its affect on sex.
I must admit that the report is rather intriguing, even if it is more than a year old.
Here’s what the study was about and what the researchers found:
Although there had been prior favorable evidence connecting moderate red wine to men’s sexual health, nobody had studied whether there was a similar correlation among women. So, Nicola Mondaini and colleagues at the University of Florence asked 798 women in the Chianti region to participate in their study. After dividing the women into groups based on their usual red wine intake, the researchers asked them to complete a standardized sexual health questionnaire.
The results showed that women who drank one or two glasses of red wine daily scored much higher on measures of desire and lubrication - and overall sexual health - than women who either abstained from alcohol or drank more than two glasses of red wine daily or consumed white wine or other alcohol.
Dr. Mondaini says the “intriguing” results have their limitations because of the study’s methodology, but they certainly suggest a connection “between red wine consumption and better sexuality.”
Yet another reason I prefer red wine.
When FDA inspectors visited Zoka Coffee Company’s roastery in April, they found a large number of what inspectors call “REPs” near coffee processing, including on the burlap bags holding raw beans. REP is an abbreviation for “rodent excreta pellets.” During one inspection visit, the FDA observed a live rat, and at another time, “an employee was observed sneezing directly into his bare hand, then touching the inside of a plastic bag in which tea was being emptied into without previously washing their hands.” Read more in the FDA’s Sept. 9 Zoka Coffee FDA Warning Letter.
I will attempt to contact Zoka for their response.
“Red wine: Exercise in a bottle?” touts the news release from a respected scientific organization. That certainly got my attention. Although the study it was reporting has intriguing results, that headline goes way too far. (The full study is below.)
The study by a group of French researchers found that several of the most serious consequences of weightlessness appear to be prevented by a daily dose of resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine long associated with health benefits. Wouldn’t it be nice if a simple pill — or a glass of wine — could stave off diabetes, muscle wasting and bone fragility?
“Resveratrol may not be a substitute for exercise, but it could slow deterioration until someone can get moving again,” says Gerald Weissmann, MD, editor-in-chief of the FASEB Journal, which published the study.
Although that is a possibility — the study is very encouraging — translating this animal study on countermeasures to weightlessness to everyday Earthbound use will take a lot of time and study. It is true that the problems developed by people who are bedridden or otherwise unable to move their lower extremities are similar to those seen in longer-term space travelers, there are some significant differences, too. In particular, astronauts tend to be otherwise extremely healthy. Bedridden adults tend to have significant medical reasons for being so constrained. How a supplement of resveratrol would work when combined with other medicines or other complications suggests major caution is necessary.
In my “day” job as a health care/science communications professional, I frequently see reports that sound too good to be true. This news release and at least one article about the study seriously go too far — and well beyond what the researchers themselves report in their scientific report. However, taken in the right perspective, the study by French researchers provides strong additional support for the potential health benefits of moderate red wine consumption.
So, go ahead and keep having a glass of red wine with your dinner, but don’t think that the wine can replace an otherwise healthy lifestyle. Sorry. You still need to go to the gym or take that walk in the park.
Resveratrol as protection against muscle wasting, other health ills
