Main results obtained through the “Wine and Health : Vascular Biology and Pathology Programme”

The financial supports and the length of research programmes have lead to necessary association with ongoing epidemiological studies (Stanislas, Monica, Gazelle, 3C ) so that significative results can be obtain in a short time period.

Among the epidemiological studies, the WH programme has supported the ones of a pioneer in the domain, Professor Serge Renaud , and particularly, his last studies together with the Center of Preventive Medicine of Nancy on the Stanislas cohort (A1, A2, A 17). The results of these studies tend to prove that a moderate and regular wine consumption could induce a lowering of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. More innovative studies have shown that the consumption of 2 or 3 glasses of wine per day (excluding any other type of alcoholic beverage) whatever are the risks factors (hypertension, dyslepidemia, …) is linked to a lowering of mortality of all cause in men and also cancer mortality in men. Ageing of the Stanislas cohort will allow to observe a significant number of events in women and consequently allow in the near future to evaluate if the results corroborate the hypothesis raised for men.

Research works in collaboration with the MONICA project (A5, A7-9, A11, A13-16, A18, A20-21) have underlined, at equal level of alcohol consumption, a differential effect related to the type of alcohol beverage, particularly of wine and beer. For example, wine has been shown having a higher stimulating effect than beer on the well-known protective fraction of the HDL – cholesterol. On the contrary, on triglycerides, wine has a lower deleterious effect than beer. In a series of studies of the MONICA group in Toulouse together with various laboratories like IVS (Institut des Vaisseaux et du Sang) in Paris, it has been observed that a moderate consumption of wine in people of South-West of France has an effect on some of the factors involved in coagulation and thrombosis mechanisms (as fibrinogen and Factor VII). In the same way, moderate and regular consumers of wine are characterized by an increasing antioxidant capacity of their plasma and by a protection against oxidation of particles such as LDL, particularly by protecting their content of antioxidant vitamins. These characteristics may contribute to explain an increased protection against cardiovascular disease.

Among the most fundamental studies on tissue or cellular effects of these wine extracts, a large project coordinated by a research team of Strasbourg in collaboration with laboratories in Dijon and Paris , has highlighted a vaso-relaxation effect of wine polyphenols on blood vessels. This phenomenon would be due, on one hand, to a direct effect on the induction of the synthesis of a powerful vasodilatation molecule: the nitric oxide (NO) by the endothelial cells of the vessels wall and in addition to an indirect effect related to the antioxidant activity of the wine phenols that would counteract the inhibitory effect of the oxidized lipids particles (LDL) on the vasodilatation action of the endothelial cells. Moreover, it seems that certain types of wine polyphenols could be involved in a direct vaso-relaxating effect (C2-8, C10).

To understand the mechanisms of wine phenolic compounds, studies have been undertaken in several complementary directions by use of medium and long term animal models in order to better evaluate the effect of a regular consumption of wine phenols on the various components of the cardiovascular pathology: atherosclerosis, thrombosis, hypertension, metabolic syndrome (C11-C26)..... Since these effects are obtained through absorption and metabolism of wine compounds, an animal model with modified digestive flora has been developed to mimic flora human type in order to study the intestinal metabolisms of wine phenols as closely as possible to human beings (B4). In addition the main phenols and metabolites of wine phenols have been labelled with a stable isotope in order to make progress in the comprehension of absorption and metabolism mechanisms of the wine components in men (B3).