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Molecules In Red Wine & Longevinex® Are Among The Strongest Prebiotics

The study was compelling.  Bacteria samples were taken from twins, one lean the other overweight, and implanted into the gut of healthy mice.  The results were astounding.  Mice that received gut bacteria from the lean twin remained healthy and lean while the mice that received bacteria from the overweight twin piled on a massive amount of weight.  [Science Sept 6, 2013]

Why it has taken modern medicine so long to understand how gut bacteria influence health and longevity?

In just a few short years the idea of supplementing the diet with healthy bacteria, namely Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidus, has risen from being a kind of a fringe health fad to mainline medicine.  Now the only effective way to treat the life-threatening antibiotic resistant Clostridium difficile infection is implantation of bacteria from fecal samples of healthy humans. [Medical News Today March 30, 2015]

The gut (small and large intestines) of a healthy lean person exhibits a dominance of a family of bacteria called Bacteroidetes (81% of proteins) while Firmicutes family bacterium comprise 94% of gut bacteria in overweight individuals.  [Environmental Microbiology Jan 15, 2013]  The balance between these families of bacteria in the human gut predicate a state of health and weight maintenance.

What of the French who drink copious amounts of red wine combined with a fatty diet and appear to remain lean and healthy?

If the French can stick to their Mediterranean diet it is predicted there will be 270,000+ Frenchmen who live into their tenth decade of life by the year 2070.  There are ~21,000 centenarians living in France today, the most in Europe and almost 20 times more than in 1970.  [The Local Nov 4, 2016]

Is it their wine? Maybe so.  Scientific studies bear this out.

In a study subjects consumed red wine, dealcoholized red wine or alcohol spirits (gin), consumption of red wine for 4 weeks significantly increased beneficial bacteria (Bacteroidetes, Bifidobacter, others) and lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressures, triglycerides, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and C-reactive protein concentrations.  [American Journal Clinical Nutrition June 2012]  Other studies confirm this.  [Food & Function April 2016]

Compared with non-drinkers, moderate red wine drinkers (1+ drinks per day) were found to have a reduced risk of prevalent metabolic syndrome (44% reduction), a lower risk of having an abnormal waist circumference (41% reduction), high blood pressure (72% reduction) and high blood sugar levels (33% reduction) than abstainers. [British Journal Nutrition April 2015]

In laboratory mice fed a high-fat diet, moderate consumption of red wine particularly prevented weight gain. [Journal Nutritional Biochemistry Feb 2006]

Which molecules in red wine?

It is not the alcohol in red wine but the wine solids that promote healthy gut bacteria and longevity.

Resveratrol, the most studied molecule in red wine, has been found to favorably alter gut bacteria (microbiota). [Nutrition Feb 2016]

A very low dose of resveratrol (~35 milligrams human equivalent dose) was given to laboratory mice after chemical inducement of colitis (colon inflammation).  Resveratrol promoted the growth of beneficial bacteria (Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidus) and diminished unhealthy bacteria and protected the mucus lining of the gut. [Journal Agriculture Food Chemistry March 2009]

Quercetin, another molecule in red wine, was found to exert a constant and significant effect upon beneficial gut bacteria (Bifidobacteria) compared to other natural molecules found in coffee, citrus fruit and berries. [Acta Bioimica Poland 2015]

Scientific studies show sunshine vitamin D works in tandem with red wine molecules to promote health.

The combination of vitamin D with prebiotics (molecules that encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut) like resveratrol and quercetin may head off diabetes and pre-diabetes. [Endocrinology Practice May 2013]

Vitamin D itself has also been found to promote regulation of gut bacteria and to control chronic inflammation. [Experimental Biology Medicine Nov 2014]

Resveratrol enhances the biological action of vitamin D via its ability to sensitize the vitamin D cell receptor on the surface of living cells. [Journal Cell Biochemistry June 2015]

How does this idea of adding red wine molecules to the diet via wine or red wine pills pan out in real life?  Well, adoption of a low-carbohydrate/low-added sugar diet is suggested (no bread, no rice, no pasta, no cereal) which means Americans would have to reject 80% of the processed food offerings in the grocery store.  But the Mediterranean diet violates much of this by inclusion of bread and pasta and fatty foods like cheese.  Recognize the French consume red wine for lunch and dinner and coffee for breakfast, which contains polyphenols similar to those found in red wine.

This is precisely the diet pattern that researchers put to the test.  Researchers found a low-carbohydrate diet was healthier than a low-fat diet for subjects attempting to control their blood sugar, which was predicted.  However, there were other interesting findings in this study. [PLoS One Nov 27, 2013]

The satiation hormone leptin (feeling full after a meal hormone) declines with consumption of a Mediterranean diet, particularly when a low-carbohydrate diet was consumed.  However, the provision of red wine increases leptin (satisfaction). [Alcohol Alcoholism Nov 2007; Annals Quantitative Cytopathology Histopathology Aug 2015 Hormone Metabolism Research Sept 2014]

Overweight individuals often develop an insensitivity to leptin (leptin resistance) that is resolved with resveratrol. [Molecular Nutrition Food Research Aug 2016]

Resveratrol is also protective against fatty liver, a condition that has risen to affect 35% of the American carbohydrate-consuming adult population.  [Pharmaceutical Bulletin July 2016]

While resveratrol, quercetin and vitamin D are not a panacea that permits consumption of sugary and carbohydrate-rich foods, they do provide a synergistic counterbalance in the diet.

It has become apparent that treatment of obesity and other disorders with probiotics is not compatible with pharmaceuticals. Natural probiotics (live organisms like Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidus) and prebiotics (molecules that encourage the growth of beneficial bacteria like those found in red wine) offer mild but significant benefits without side effects.

Researchers say: “Pharmaceutical treatment has, thus far, failed to inhibit the tsunami of endemic diseases spreading around the world, and no new tools are in sight…. Lesions in the skin, blood-brain barrier and the gut (leaky gut) through the use of so called ‘probiotics’, normally applied to the gut, are rarely successful, and sometimes fail, as they are usually applied in parallel with heavy pharmaceutical treatment, not rarely consisting in antibiotics and chemotherapy. It is increasingly observed that the majority of pharmaceutical drugs, even those believed to have minimal adverse effects, such as antacids (proton pump inhibitors) and blood pressure-lowering drugs adversely affect the immune system and are likely to be deleterious to microbiota (gut bacteria).” [Pharmaceutical Research March 2013] – ©2016 Bill Sardi  ResveratrolNews.com