Moderate consumption of red wine benefits the heart – 02/08/2023 – Balance and Health

Moderate consumption of red wine helps to remodel the intestinal microbiota in a few weeks, whose role in cardiovascular diseases is increasingly recognized by science. This is what reveals a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The work, entitled “Wine Flora Study” and supported by FAPESP (projects 15/21260-6 and 14/50907-5), involved 42 patients with coronary artery disease. The article is signed by researchers from the universities of São Paulo (USP), State of Campinas (Unicamp), Verona (Italy), Brasília (UnB), Harvard (United States) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (Austria).

In the clinical trial, the scientists used a strategy known as crossover, that is, each of the participants (men with an average age of 60 years) underwent two interventions: for three weeks, they consumed 250 milliliters of red wine (with 12.75 % alcohol concentration and produced with merlot grapes by the Instituto Brasileiro do Vinho especially for the study) and, for the same period, abstained from alcohol.

Both interventions were preceded by a two-week washout (pause in the consumption of certain substances so that their traces are completely eliminated from the body), without consumption of alcoholic beverages, fermented foods (yogurt, kombucha, soy lecithin, kefir and sauerkraut, for example), prebiotics (including insulin), probiotics, fiber and dairy products.

“In this type of work, each person is in control of himself and, with this, we eliminate confusion factors”, explains Protásio Lemos da Luz, a professor at USP’s Instituto do Coração (InCor) who has been studying the effects of red wine for over for 20 years and has already demonstrated experimentally that consumption by animals (rabbits), associated with a diet rich in cholesterol, reduces the formation of atherosclerotic plaques.

Another strategy to rule out possible confounding factors was to submit all participants to a controlled diet and without other components present in wine —for example, polyphenols also found in teas, strawberries and grape juice.

At each intervention, the intestinal microbiota was analyzed by high-throughput 16S rRNA sequencing, a technology that allows the genetic identification of bacterial species by the 16S gene, which is present in all of them. The metabolites present in the plasma (plasma metabolome) were also analyzed, as a result of the metabolization of chemical compounds and food, using the LC-MS/MS technique, which separates the compounds in a liquid chromatography system and then analyzes them in a spectrometer. of pasta.

One of the metabolites of interest to researchers is the so-called TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), which is secreted by flora microorganisms from protein-rich foods and has been associated with the development of atherosclerotic disease.

What has changed

The researchers observed that the intestinal microbiota underwent significant remodeling after the drink was consumed — with a predominance of the genera Parasutterella, Ruminococcaceae, Bacteroides and Prevotella. Such microorganisms are fundamental in human homeostasis, that is, in the normal functioning of the organism.

Significant changes in plasma metabolomics, consistent with improved redox homeostasis, were also observed. It is this process that guarantees 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 the modulation of the intestinal microbiota may contribute to the supposed cardiovascular benefits of moderate consumption of red wine.

“When it comes to atherosclerosis, we basically have two treatment options: one is to use statins, drugs that reduce cardiovascular events, and the other is to modify one’s lifestyle, practicing exercises, avoiding smoking, taking care of risk factors, such as hypertension, and controlling the diet —and that includes the moderate consumption of wine”, says da Luz.

“We showed that a habitual intervention [usada por várias populações, como as da Espanha, França, Itália, de Portugal e do sul do Brasil] may interfere with intestinal flora and plasma metabolomics, partly explaining the beneficial effects of wine observed in studies over the years. However, we warn you that excessive alcohol consumption, that is, greater than 30 grams [no caso do vinho, 250 ml] per day is harmful and is associated with increases in cancer mortality, accidents and violent deaths.”

The researcher also informs that, in the case of the TMAO metabolite, whose effects on health still need to be better investigated, the analyzes indicated that the plasma levels were not different during consumption and abstention from wine.

“Considering other recently published studies, which identify the increase in the substance as a marker of cardiovascular events in the long term, our interpretation is that the period of three weeks is too short for a significant change to occur”, concludes da Luz.

The article “A red wine intervention does not modify plasma trimethylamine N-oxide, but is associated with large changes in plasma metabolome and gut microbiota composition” can be read here.