Last week I began a two-part discussion of the health benefits of resveratrol, a remarkable compound found primarily in the skin of red grapes. I got into hot water with a few readers by suggesting that there are people who might benefit from drinking wine, especially the variety known as Pinot Noir. Speaking for myself, I enjoy a glass of wine now and then, with a good meal - something the French refer to as a digestif. But some people have had far more painful experiences with alcohol, and so it is understandable that they react very negatively to any favorable mention of it...by anyone. Anywhere. Any time.

I recognize that alcohol consumption is a complex issue. Sigmund Freud says somewhere (I've lost the reference) that the discovery of alcohol was one of the greatest innovations of humanity. But I live in a town that also hosts one of the top party schools in the United States. Just by opening my morning paper I get a graphic description of the havoc that alcohol abuse can cause in a community. That is among the reasons that I explicitly stated in last week's article that I was not encouraging people to take up the drinking habit. As I wrote: "Alcohol has too many potential downsides, including the possibility of addiction, to recommend it." But if you are already a responsible, moderate, non-addicted adult drinker, you might consider switching to red wine, particularly Pinot Noir, which has some health-promoting potential from its relatively high resveratrol content.

Red wine also seems to be consistently associated with a 20 to 30 percent reduction in coronary heart disease risk, according to the well-regarded Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. So you have to be able to look a complicated picture and make a decision based on your own individual circumstances.

To Supplement or Not?

I also seem to have angered some readers by stating in a footnote that that those who preferred to get their resveratrol without the accompanying alcohol can purchase capsules that provide an equivalent benefit. Most of the resveratrol in capsules is derived from an extract of the root of Polygonum cuspidatum, an inexpensively sourced plant known as Japanese knotweed or Hu Zhang. You can also get pills with red wine or red grape extracts but generally at a much higher price.

Typically, a five-ounce glass of red wine contains about 1 mg of resveratrol. Nobody knows how many milligrams you actually need to stay well, much less to combat cancer. Dr. David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School, an expert on the topic, has said that he personally takes 5 mg per kilogram of his body weight - which works out to about 350 mg per day for the average adult.

A resveratrol supplement pill contains anywhere from 10-50 mg of resveratrol. In November and December of 2007, Consumerlab.com compared numerous resveratrol supplements whose active ingredient was obtained from red wine, grape and Polygonum sources. Two of the products tested failed the Consumerlab test because their reservatrol content did not live up to the label's claims. Happily, none of the products was contaminated with lead or cadmium.

The price of resveratrol supplements ranges from 12 cents to an incredible $45.57 per 100 mg. (The most expensive product has now been removed from the market.) But all other things being equal, one should choose the least expensive product. For under a dollar a day therefore you can get a very high dose of this promising compound. Or you can drink a glass of red wine, grape juice - or eat a handful of peanuts. You won't get as much concentrated resveratrol, but you'll enjoy yourself a whole lot more.

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Resources:

1. http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/resveratrol/
2. http://www.consumerlab.org

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