Healthy Living

Cardioprotection with Alcohol

Role of Both Alcohol and Polyphenolic Antioxidants

MOTOAKI SATO, NILANJANA MAULIK and DIPAK K. DAS
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 957:122-135 (2002)

Both epidemiological and experimental studies indicate that mild-to-moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a reduced incidence of mortality and morbidity from coronary heart disease. The consumption of wine, particularly red wine, imparts a greater benefit in the prevention of coronary heart disease than the consumption of other alcoholic beverages. The cardioprotective effects of red wine have been attributed to several polyphenolic antioxidants including resveratrol and proanthocyanidins. The results of our study documented that the polyphenolic antioxidants present in red wine, for example, resveratrol and proanthocyanidins, provide cardioprotection by their ability to function as in vivo antioxidants while its alcoholic component or alcohol by itself imparts cardioprotection by adapting the hearts to oxidative stress. Moderate alcohol consumption induced significant amount of oxidative stress to the hearts which was then translated into the induction of the expression of several cardioprotective oxidative stress-inducible proteins including heat shock protein (HSP) 70. Feeding the rats with red wine extract or its polyphenolic antioxidants as well as alcohol resulted in the improvement of postischemic ventricular function. Additionally, both wine and alcohol triggered a signal transduction cascade by reducing proapoptotic transcription factors and genes such as JNK-1 and c-Jun thereby potentiating an anti-death signal. This resulted in the reduction of myocardial infarct size and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. The results, thus, indicate that although both wine and alcohol alone reduce myocardial ischemic reperfusion injury, the mechanisms of cardioprotection differ from each other.

What this means

Molecular evidence for the cardioprotective effects of wine are mounting. The researchers in this study have found in vivo evidence that it is the synergy of the alcohol and antioxident molecules in red wine that help protect the heart. By measuring certain biomarkers of heart disease and heart damage they could see fewer cells dying in vitro (in the cell culture dish). The researchers also determined that alcohol and the antioxidant molecules worked in different ways.