Good news for those who like red wine. While much has been said about the potential benefits of moderate drinking, a new study by an international team of researchers shows that one drink a day, more specifically of the variety merlot brings improvements to the intestinal microbiota -a population of good bacteria that lives in that organ- and, consequently, to the heart.
The study, published in the scientific journal JAMA Network Open had the participation of Brazilian scientists and the support of the São Paulo Research Support Foundation (FAPESP).
“The interest in studying the interaction of wine with intestinal flora It arose because, in recent years, the microbiota has been identified as an important participant in human health when it is related to various diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and even autism spectrum disorders. This is because everything we eat has to pass through the intestine, an organ that, by metabolizing food, produces substances that interfere with various physiological systems of the body,” explains Protasio Lemos da Luz, cardiologist and senior researcher at the Institute. of the Heart (InCor).
To reach the conclusion, the clinical trial involved 42 patients with an average age of 60 with Coronary artery disease (EAC), a condition that causes blockage of the blood vessels that supply the heart. Participants went through a strategy known as crossover when two interventions are inserted and then their results are compared.
In general, all patients drank a glass of 250 ml of red wine a day for three weeks. The drink was produced with merlot grapes by the Brazilian Wine Institute, especially for the study, and had an alcohol concentration of 12.75%. Then, the volunteers stayed for the same period, 21 days, in alcohol withdrawal.
Before both the drinking period and the non-alcoholic period, there was a two-week window for something called a washout, a break in the consumption of certain substances so they don’t influence the results. In these 14 days, in addition to alcoholic beverages, fermented foods, prebiotics, probiotics, fibers, and dairy products were prohibited.
“When it comes to atherosclerosis, we basically have two forms of treatment: one is to use statins, drugs that reduce cardiovascular events, and the other is to modify your lifestyle, exercise, avoid smoking, take care of risk factors such as hypertension and controlling the diet, and this includes moderate consumption of wine”, details the researcher Protásio da Luz, who has been studying the effects of red wine for more than 20 years.
Conclusions on the impact of wine on the microbiota
The researchers observed that the microbiota intestinal underwent a significant makeover after the drinking period, with genres dominating Parasutterella, Ruminococcaceae, Bacteroides y Prevotella. Such microorganisms are fundamental in human homeotase, that is, in the normal functioning of the organism.
Significant changes were also observed in the metabolic processes that ensure the balance of oxidant and antioxidant molecules, avoiding the so-called “oxidative stress”, which induces diseases such as atherosclerosis. With these results, the researchers concluded that modulation of the gut microbiota may contribute to the cardiovascular benefits of moderate red wine consumption.
“We showed that a habitual intervention [utilizada por varias poblaciones, como las de España, Francia, Italia, Portugal y el sur de Brasil] can interfere with intestinal flora and metabolomics plasma (metabolites present in plasma), which partly explains the beneficial effects of wine observed in studies over the years. However, we warn that excessive alcohol consumption, that is, more than 30 grams [en el caso del vino, 250 ml] per day, is bad and is associated with increases in mortality from cancers, accidents and violent deaths”, says Luz.
The study was carried out by researchers from the universities of São Paulo (USP), the State of Campinas (Unicamp), Verona (Italy), Brasilia (UnB), Harvard (United States) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (Austria), and was financed by FAPESP.