To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] red wine and health
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 19:55:14 -0600
One size never fits all:
"Notice you hear very little about white
wine, its because of the anthocyanins and higher
phenolic content of the red."
True, but some people get migraines from red wine.
"recent studies linking
acetaldehyde (metabolite in the liver from the
consumption of alcohol) in the body to production of a
carcinogenic substance"
Some people convert alcohol to this form more quickly than others, and some
have trouble breaking it down from that point. You can get an idea of how
well your liver breaks down aldehydes by how much you are bothered by molds
and perfumes. I don't get along well with either. As it happens, alcohol
has never done anything for me, so I seldom bother to drink the stuff.
I read that autopsies on a long series of Bowery alcoholics revealed
that only 10% had cirrhosis. The writer said that if only 10% of the
population will develop cirrhosis no matter how much they drink, "let's
figure out who those people are so the rest of us can have a good time."
Well, he said, for one thing they don't have hair on their chests. This was
first thought to be a symptom, but it turns out these men NEVER had hair on
their chests. So as I'm on the hemochromatosis support group, where people
who have never taken a drink cam turn up with cirrhosis because of iron
overload, I asked about hairy chests in the group. Hans in Switzerland
pointed out that an American, Dr. Pfeiffer, had shown that men with
histadelia (high histamine) had little body hair while those with histopenia
(low histamine) tended to be hairy. Many chemical processes are different
in these groups. Who knows, maybe the hairy chested guys with
hemochromatosis are somehow protected from liver damage.