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repeatedly confirm his statistics year after year. Mortality due to alcoholism is lowest in the wine regions. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN |.H.D. MORTALITY-RATE IN MEN AGED 55-64 AND WINE CONSUMPTION 11 FINLAND e U.S.A. @ AUSTRALIA COMAND @ SCOTLAND ,@, ' @ CANADA Faw @ JRELAND @ NORWAY @ NETHERLANDS @ DENMARK @ BELGIUM e @ AUSTRIA WEST GERMANY, Ld SWEDEN e SWITZERLAND 0.40 0.80 1.20 WINE CONSUMPTION (LOG10 SCALE) 1.60 2.0 Fig. 1: In The Lancet of 12 May 1979, St Leger revealed the “French Paradox", relating wine consumption (the horizontal line) with mortality (the vertical line) for men aged 55-64. Wine-drink- ing countries like France and Italy score extremely well. THE PARADOXES OF SCIENCE To Jack Masquelier, now Professor Emeritus, the findings of St Leger hadn't come as a surprise but rather as a confirmation of Dougnac's study and of all the research he had been doing since 1945. In Masquelier's opinion, the mystery surrounding the French Paradox was already lifted in 1944 when his colleague, J. Lavollay, showed that administering 2 cc of red wine to laboratory animals doubled their vascular resistance. Since Szent-Gyérgyi, "vascular resistance" or "vascular perme- ability" had been the key issue in all the research. Vascular per- meability is monitored by vitamin C and its co-factor, which Szent-Gyérgyi believed to be the bioflavonoids. He had even coined a mixture of both, "vitamin P"—"P" after permeability. But vitamin P was never officially acknowledged as a true vitamin because the results reached with the bioflavonoids were inconsis- FINLAND e U.S.A. i] @ AUSTRALIA @ CANADA E&Ww “e 1RELAND @ NORWAY @ NETHERLANDS @ DENMARK @ BELGIUM Ld SWEDEN e tent. The Frenchman Lavollay demonstrated that red wine had a vita- min P effect. He experimented with red wine on animals and found that their capillary resistance increased. A lack of sufficient possibilities and knowledge about isolating these vitamin P factors led Lavollay to the conclusion that he was dealing with the effects of a molecule called "epicatechin". Epicatechin is the mirror- structure of “catechin", which is the building block of OPC. Lavollay didn't know that he was not dealing with epicatechin, but with polymerised forms (pairs and triplets) of epicatechin—with OPC. The Greek word oligo means "a few". OPC simply means “a few"—two or three catechin molecules together. Because the catechin pairs and triplets stand alone in their capacity to transform into the red anthocyanin, we don't call them “oligomeric catechins" but "oligomeric proanthocyanidins", pre- cursors of the red pigment. e SWITZERLAND France's high-fat diet and relatively high number of avid cigarette- smokers. Also, many people simply equate wine with alcohol, and that makes the cardiovascular benefits of wine a contradiction in itself. That is how St Leger’s findings were soon baptised with the name, "French Paradox". in itself. That is how St Leger's findings were soon baptised with © RED WINE CONTAINS MORE OPC THAN WHITE WINE . the name, "French Paradox". Contrary to what many people believe, the colour of wine has nothing to do with the colour of the grapes. As Masquelier WINE DRINKERS LIVE LONGER explains, it is not a matter of grape colour but a matter of produc- The correlation between wine consumption and good health had ___ tion. already been demonstrated in France as early as 1933, when F. "Strangely enough,” he tells us, “people don't really know the Dougnac compared the number of old people i in his own region difference, in terms of Production, between white wine and red (the Médoc wine dis- ; "| wine. When I tell them trict) with the total that most varieties of number of old people champagne, which is a in the whole of white wine, are France. (See Fig. 2.) | obtained from red With advancing years, | grapes, they think I'm counting from the age | joking. But no, the dif- of 60 onward, the per- | ference between white centages increase as wine and red wine is a follows: ie | difference in produc- * in the 60-64 age |, tion. White wine is category, 34% more made with only the people lived in the : juice of red grapes; Médoc region than in all of f France; nothing else. The juice is squeezed out of the grapes, just like * in the category 65-69 it was 37% more; orange juice, and then it is fermented; that's all. The seeds and the * for people in their 70s it was 42%; skins are discarded right after the pressing of the grapes. Only the * for people above 80 it was as much as 88%! juice is fermented and eventually becomes white wine." Due to their consumption of alcohol, the French are sometimes In the making of red wine, on the other hand, the whole grapes considered to have a high prevalence of alcoholism. But as faras are crushed and everything is left together for two to three wine is concerned, Dougnac's figures strongly contradict this « weeks—skins, seeds, ‘flesh’, parts of the string, a mixture that con- alleged negative relationship. Moreover, the officially published tains the red pigments of the skin (anthocyanins) and lots of OPC figures in France cdncerning the mortality rate due to alcoholism (proanthocyanidins), located in the skin and the seeds. Pigments 38 « NEXUS Ne @ausiRA WEST GERMANY, WINE CONSUMPTION (LOG10 SCALE) DECEMBER 1995 - JANUARY 1996