CHIANTI: Secret To Long Life - HISTORY

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                                 Study Suggests Red Wine May Protect Against Lung Cancer






By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Oct. 7, 2008
 
TUESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Men who drink a moderate amount of red wine may lower their risk of lung cancer, even if they smoke, researchers report.
 
"An antioxidant component in red wine may help to prevent lung cancer," said lead researcher Chun Chao, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation. "The findings provide an impetus for future research to find out if there is something in red wine that may help to either prevent or treat lung cancer."


But the researchers cautioned that the findings don't mean that it's OK to smoke.


For the study, Chao's group collected data on 84,170 men who participated in the California Men's Health Study. Among these men, the researchers identified 210 cases of lung cancer.


The researchers found that there was, on average, a 2 percent lower risk of lung cancer associated with each glass of red wine consumed per month.


The greatest reduction was among men who smoked and drank one to two glasses of red wine a day. These men lowered their risk for lung cancer by 60 percent, Chao's group found.


The reduction wasn't as pronounced among nonsmokers who drank one to two glasses of red wine a day. And no reduction in risk for lung cancer was associated with white wine, beer or liquor, the researchers said.


Despite the findings, Chao warned against thinking that smoking and drinking red wine can actually prevent lung cancer.


"Men who smoke should stop smoking," she said. "Even men who drink one or two glasses of red wine per day still face a greater risk of lung cancer than do nonsmokers. This study should not be used as an excuse to drink more red wine. Moderation is always the best course."


The findings were published in the October issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.


Dr. Leonard Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer, doesn't think that one study proves that red wine will protect you from lung cancer.


"It's an interesting study, and it raises interesting questions about whether or not there is a cancer protective effect in red wine," he said. "It is important that this be looked at further to see if that association holds up."


Lichtenfeld noted that there have been previous reports of a benefit of red wine for cancer prevention that didn't pan out. "Before we get overly excited about this, we really need to see these effects replicated," he said.


"Clearly, we aren't recommending that smokers go out and start consuming large amounts of red wine as a potential protection from getting lung cancer," he added. "There are other research reports that show that any alcohol, including red wine, can increase the risk of other cancers such as breast cancer."


More information


For more on lung cancer, visit the National Cancer Institute.

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                                 How Red Wine Compounds Fight Alzheimer's Disease






ScienceDaily
(Nov. 23, 2008) —
Scientists call it the "French paradox" — a society that, despite consuming food high in cholesterol
and saturated fats, has long had low death rates from heart disease. Research has suggested it is
the red wine consumed with all that fatty food that may be beneficial — and not only for cardio-
vascular health but in warding off certain tumors and even Alzheimer's disease.

Now, Alzheimer's researchers at UCLA, in collaboration with Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, have discovered how red wine may reduce the incidence of the disease. Reporting in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal
of Biological Chemistry, David Teplow, a UCLA professor of neurology, and colleagues show how naturally occurr-
ing compounds in red wine called polyphenols block the formation of proteins that build the toxic plaques thought
to destroy brain cells, and further, how they reduce the toxicity of existing plaques, thus reducing cognitive deterioration.

Polyphenols comprise a chemical class with more than 8,000 members, many of which are found in high concentrations in wine, tea, nuts, berries, cocoa and various plants. Past research has suggested that such polyphenols may inhibit or prevent the buildup of toxic fibers composed primarily of two proteins — Aß40 and
Aß42 — that deposit in the brain and form the plaques which have long been associated with Alzheimer's. Until
now, however, no one understood the mechanics of how polyphenols worked.

Teplow's lab has been studying how amyloid beta (Aß) is involved in causing Alzheimer's. In this work, researchers monitored how Aß40 and Aß42 proteins folded up and stuck to each other to produce aggregates that killed nerve cells in mice. They then treated the proteins with a polyphenol compound extracted from grape seeds. They discovered that polyphenols carried a one-two punch: They blocked the formation of the toxic aggregates of Aß
and also decreased toxicity when they were combined with Aß before it was added to brain cells.

"What we found is pretty straightforward," Teplow said. "If the Aß proteins can't assemble, toxic aggregates can't form, and thus there is no toxicity. Our work in the laboratory, and Mt. Sinai's Dr. Giulio Pasinetti's work in mice, suggest that administration of the compound to Alzheimer's patients might block the development of these toxic aggregates, prevent disease development and also ameliorate existing disease."

Human clinical trials are next.

"No disease-modifying treatments of Alzheimer's now exist, and initial clinical trials of a number of different candi-
date drugs have been disappointing," Teplow said. "So we believe that this is an important next step."

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health; the Department of Veterans Affairs; the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center Program, Polyphenolics (to
Giulio Pasinetti); grants from the Japan Human Science Foundation and the Mochida Memorial Foundation for
Medical and Pharmaceutical Research; grants from the Alzheimer's Association; and the Jim Easton Consortium
for Alzheimer's Drug Discovery and Biomarkers at UCLA (to David Teplow). Teplow reports no conflict of interests.


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Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles.
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                                                Ruffino 'Il Leo' 2007 Chianti Superiore






Wednesday,
February 18, 2009
TheSt.PeteTimes


Sangiovese is probably best known as the dominant grape in the blend called Chianti, the family of
wines that takes its name from a region in Tuscany. Chiantis range from youngsters with a bite to velvety wines with attitude. Toward the smooth and balanced end of that spectrum is Ruffino "Il Leo" 2007 Chianti Superiore (about $11 at big box stores and wine savvy supermarkets). It isn't the top of the Chianti line by any means, but it is a step up from typical supermarket offerings.

Some of us first met Chianti in a decorative green bottle wrapped in straw at a certain class of Americanized Italian restaurant and pigeonholed it as kitsch. The truth is that Chianti is a versatile
wine and deserves its place on our short list of reliable dinner companions.

The winemaker notes that "Il Leo" is a relatively new style for the venerable house of Ruffino, made of grapes from vineyards where yields are kept low to produce more intense fruit. This approach pays off
in a mouth-filling wine that drinks smoothly and offers both the cherry and violet scents that characterize the Sangiovese grape and hints of tobacco, vanilla and, on the long finish, plum jam.

We drink this wine with any meal calling for a modestly assertive red, from a rich triple-mushroom homemade lasagna to simply grilled ribeye steaks and roasted veggies. And on those evenings when we're in a hurry and the pasta sauce comes out of a jar, this superior Chianti lends the quickie a heft
it might otherwise lack.




Colette and John Bancroft.

She is the Times' book editor,
and he is a freelance writer
specializing in food,
wine and travel.

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                                             Chianti Classico for a desert isle



                              Tuscan red chosen in poll by Britain's Decanter magazine






 (ANSA) -
Florence,
March 19, 2009

- Chianti Classico is the perfect wine to have on a desert island, according to the authoritative British trade magazine Decanter.

In its April edition, the magazine published the results of a survey it took among its journalists asking what one wine they would want if they were to spend the rest of their lives on a desert island.

Chianti Classico was chosen by the magazine's correspondent in Florence, Richard Baudains, who said the Tuscan red was ''perhaps the best imaginable wine to have on one's table. It is never obvious, banal or too simple''.

''Chianti Classico is also a wine which clearly expresses the various characteristics which distinguish the many vineyards which produce it,'' he added.

It was the only Italian wine picked in the poll.

Chianti Classico is the premier wine made in the Chianti region and by definition can only come from a 7,000-hectare area between Florence and Siena, while the more generic Chianti and Chianti Superiore can be produced there as well as in four other Tuscan provinces: Arezzo, Pisa, Pistoia and Prato.

Chianti Classico is a blended wine which must be made with at least 80 percent sangiovese grapes, while the remainder can be consist of other native grapes like canaiolo and colorino, or international varieties like cabernet sauvignon, syrah or merlot.

Its quality is ensured by a label of guaranteed and controlled designation of origin (DOCG) and the Gallo Nero (Black ****) trademark on the neck.

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                                                                         CSIRO Plant Industry's Dr Mandy Walker.

                                                                        (Credit: Image courtesy of CSIRO Australia)









                              Red Wine And White Wine May Be Equally Good For The Heart






ScienceDaily
(Aug. 21, 2006)

— Scientists say they have new evidence that the pulp of grapes appears just as heart-healthy in laboratory experiments.

The new study, scheduled for the Aug. 23 issue of the ACS Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry, challenges the idea that red wine is more heart-healthy white wine.

Past studies indicated that the cardioprotective compounds in grapes -- polyphenolic antioxidants -- reside in the skin and seeds. Grape skins, which contain purple pigment, are crushed with the pulp to make red wines. But the skins are separated from the pulp to make most white wine. That situation led to the conventional belief that red wines and red grape juice are the most heart healthy.

Dipak K. Das, of the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine, headed the study. It was done with colleagues form the University of Milan and several other research institutes in Italy.

"Although further study is needed to identify the principle ingredients responsible for the cardioprotective abilities of the grape flesh, to the best of our knowledge, our study provides evidence for the first time that the flesh of grapes is equally cardioprotective with respect to the skins," the researchers report.

Reference: "Comparison of Cardioprotective Abilities Between the Flesh and Skin of Grapes"


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Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.
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                      Red Wine Compound Resveratrol Demonstrates Significant Health Benefits






ScienceDaily
(June 12, 2009)

— The benefits of alcohol are all about moderation. Low to moderate drinking – especially of red wine – appears to reduce all causes of mortality, while too much drinking causes multiple organ damage. A mini-review of recent findings on red wine's polyphenols, particularly one called resveratrol, will be published in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research; the review is also available at Early View.

"Reports on the benefits of red wine are almost two centuries old," said Lindsay Brown, associate professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland and corresponding author for the study. "The media developed the more recent story of the French paradox in the early 1990s. However, studies on the actions of resveratrol, one of the active non-alcoholic ingredients, were uncommon until research around 1997 showed prevention of cancers. This led to a dramatic interest in this compound."

Red wine contains a complex mixture of bioactive compounds, including flavonols, monomeric and polymeric flavan-3-ols, highly colored anthocyanins, as well as phenolic acids and the stilbene polyphenol, resveratrol. Brown said that some of these compounds, particularly resveratrol, appear to have health benefits.

"The breadth of benefits is remarkable – cancer prevention, protection of the heart and brain from damage, reducing age-related diseases such as inflammation, reversing diabetes and obesity, and many more," said Brown. "It has long been a question as to how such a simple compound could have these effects but now the puzzle is becoming clearer with the discovery of the pathways, especially the sirtuins, a family of enzymes that regulate the production of cellular components by the nucleus. 'Is resveratrol the only compound with these properties?' This would seem unlikely, with similar effects reported for other components of wine and for other natural products such as curcumin. However, we know much more about resveratrol relative to these other compounds."

Stephen Taylor, professor of pharmacology at the University of Queensland, agreed that resveratrol is the "compound du jour."

"I think that red wine has both some mystique and some historical symbolism in the west," said Taylor, "and of course, some various pleasures attached to its ingestion, all of which give it a psychological advantage edge, food-wise. Not many of us can or will eat a couple of cups of blueberries a day for years on end, but if we could do a population study for a decade or so on such a group, you might actually see similar results."

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Key points of the review include:

•Resveratrol exhibits therapeutic potential for cancer chemoprevention as well as cardioprotection.
"It sounds contradictory that a single compound can benefit the heart by preventing damage to cells, yet prevent cancer by causing cell death, said Brown. "The most likely explanation for this, still to be rigorously proved in many organs, is that low concentrations activate survival mechanisms of cells while high concentrations turn on the in-built death signals in these cells."

•Resveratrol may aid in the prevention of age-related disorders, such as neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
"The simplest explanation is that resveratrol turns on the cell's own survival pathways, preventing damage to individual cells," said Brown. "Further mechanisms help, including removing very reactive oxidants in the body and improving blood supply to cells."

•Low doses of resveratrol improve cell survival as a mechanism of cardio- and neuro-protection, while high doses increase cell death.
"The key difference is probably the result of activation of the sirtuins in the nucleus," said Brown. "Low activation reverses age-associated changes, while high activation increases the process of apoptosis or programmed cell death to remove cellular debris. Similar changes are seen with low-dose versus high-dose resveratrol: low-dose resveratrol produces cellular protection and reduces damage, while high-dose resveratrol prevents cancers."

In summary, noted Brown, current scientific research is starting to explain reports from the last 200 years that drinking red wine improves health. "It is a cliché that 'nature is a treasure trove of compounds,' but studies with resveratrol show that this is correct! We need to understand better the vast array of compounds that exist in nature, and determine their potential benefits to health."

"There is one particular point that deserves fleshing out," added Taylor. "Resveratrol is largely inactivated by the gut or liver before it reaches the blood stream, where it exerts its effects – whatever they may be – good, bad, or indifferent. Thus, most of the reseveratrol in imbibed red wine does not reach the circulation. Interestingly, absorption via the mucous membanes in the mouth can result in up to around 100 times the blood levels, if done slowly rather than simply gulping it down. Of course, we don't know if these things matter yet, but issues like this are real and generally ignored by all."


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Journal reference:

1.Brown et al. The Biological Responses to Resveratrol and Other Polyphenols From Alcoholic Beverages. Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research, 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00989.x
Adapted from materials provided by Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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 MLA Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (2009, June 12). Red Wine Compound Resveratrol Demonstrates Significant Health Benefits. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 12, 2009, from


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                                              Farmers furious over 'DIY' Chianti



                                  Magic powder makes 'terrible copy', association says





 
 (ANSA)
- Florence,
July 6, 2009

- A Tuscan farmers' association is up in arms with a German company for selling a kit that allegedly promises to turn water into Chianti wine.

The Trek'n Eat website advertises a 'magic' powder that with the addition of water means ''mountaineering gourmands no longer have to forgo a glass of red wine after conquering a peak'', although on Monday there was no mention of Chianti on the site.

When mixed with water the powder turns into an 8.2% alcholic drink that costs 3.95 euros for 200 ml.

The Tuscany branch of farmers' association Coldiretti said the product was a ''terrible copy''.

''Wine is made from grapes and not packets of powder from which hodgepodges are made,'' it said.

''This is just the latest trick at the expense of one of Italy's most prestigious products''.

The association also complained about other wine-from-powder kits available on the Internet that promise the real thing in 28 days.

''This risks fooling less expert consumers on the real contents of the product on sale and damages the image of Italian and European production,'' Coldiretti said.

To qualify for the famous Chianti Classico black rooster label, wine has to adhere to strict criteria that include designated geographical origin, a minimum 80% Sangiovese red grape content and ''a smell of violets''.