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Health
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2006-12-04 05:54:55-05
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Red wine from south-west France is best for the heart
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London, Dec 4: If you want to give a boost to your heart, raise a toast with a glass of red wine from south-west France. A recent study by a team of British researchers published in Nature magazine shows that red wines from this region have the highest levels of procyanidins - the compounds in grape seeds that are responsible for making red wine good for the heart. Roger Corder at Queen Mary's School of Medicine in London and his colleagues used cultured endothelial cells from blood vessels to identify which component of red wine had the greatest effect on blood vessel dilation. While previous studies have shown that resveratrol, found in the skin of red grapes, extends the life of yeast, flies, worms and fish, Corder found that its levels in red wine were so low that it had no effect on blood vessels at all. Procyanidins, however, suppressed the synthesis of a peptide called endothelin-1 that constricts blood vessels. "With resveratrol you'd need to drink 1000 litres of red wine or so to have any chance of affecting longevity," New Scientist quoted Corder, as saying. "But procyanidins are so potent that drinking just one glass a day would have an effect," Corder added. The team also compared the procyanidin content of wines from different regions. Wines from south-west France and Sardinia had between two and four times as much procyanidins as other red wines, which Corder believes is because traditional wine-making techniques are still in use there.
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