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Recently Reported Health
Benefits of Red Wine are Dead Wrong
by
Gregory J. Rummo
The wine
industry received a boost in late August, courtesy
of the medical community, when
researchers announced that drinking red wine may
prolong life.
The compound, resveratol, found in grapes, peanuts
and red wine was shown to extend the
lifespan of yeast cells by up to 80 percent.
Experiments on worms, flies and mice are next.
Why winos don’t live to be 130 wasn’t addressed in
the study—more on this point later.
The research, published in the online journal
“Nature,” is being conducted by Dr. David
Sinclair, an assistant professor of pathology at
the Harvard Medical School.
In a Reuters news story, Dr. Sinclair was quoted as
saying, “Not many people know about it
yet, but those who do have almost invariably
changed their drinking habits, that is, they drink
more
red wine.”
I honestly wonder if the wine industry is funding
this study. There’s a subtle deception going
on here. Did you catch it?
It’s not the wine that’s the magic elixir. It’s the
peanut and the grape. And one can eat a
bunch of grapes, drink a glass of red or purple
grape juice or make a peanut butter and grape jelly
sandwich to experience the same life-prolonging effects.
Here’s a question for Dr. Sinclair: While the
resveratol in red wine is prolonging a person’s
life, what is the alcohol doing?
Alcohol destroys liver and brain cells. Why bother
living a longer life if your brain is half dead
and your liver is on life support?
Additionally, consider these statistics:
According to the 1993 National Household Survey,
103 million people in the United States
are current drinkers and 11 million are heavy
drinkers.
Alcohol-related crimes in the United States account
for 54 percent of murders and attempted
murders, 68 percent of manslaughters, 52 percent of
rape/sexual assaults, and 48 percent of
robberies.
40,000 babies are born each year with birth defects from alcohol abuse. In families with one alcoholic parent, the child is 34 percent more likely to be alcoholic than children of non-alcoholics.
Social costs of alcohol addiction amount to $100 billion per year in lost productivity and related health costs.
7 out of 10 adults drink alcohol. Of these, one out
of seven is an alcoholic.
On top of these, there are an estimated 25,000
alcohol-related fatalities on the nation’s
highways every year. Obviously, none of those
people lived a longer life and in fact many were
innocent victims and teenagers whose lives were
tragically cut short.
We don’t need some doctor in a white coat from
Harvard telling us to drink more red wine to
extend our lives. Remember, doctors are only
licensed to practice medicine. Let them practice on
each other.
The health benefits of the peanut and grape are
well-known—maybe not all of the molecular
nuances that Dr. Sinclair and his group are
attempting to characterize—but there has been
enough
data collected to convince people like the popular
radio personality Paul Harvey. He has been
extolling the health benefits of Welch’s grape
juice to his listeners for years.
Common sense ought to be enough to dictate a
logical course of action: Eat more grapes,
drink grape juice, add peanuts to your diet and
avoid alcoholic beverages. You might just live
longer.
And if you aren’t willing to trust Paul Harvey’s
advice, try the wisdom of King Solomon who
wrote: “Wine is a mocker…whoever is led astray by
it is not wise.”
Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist.
Visit his website,
GregRummo.com
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