White wine 'just as healthy as red'

A new study provides the perfect excuse to pour another glass of Pinot Grigio.

Experts say white wine is just as healthy for the heart as red. Rats given a tipple of Italian white wine with their meals suffered less heart attack damage than animals allowed only water or raw grain alcohol.

The benefits were similar to those seen in animals fed red wine, or its "wonder" grape-skin ingredient, resveratrol.

Red wine, and resveratrol, have often been cited as the cause of the "French paradox" - the fact that French people have low rates of heart disease despite eating a lot of fat. White wine, made from the pulp of grapes but not the skin, contains no resveratrol, which is said to protect against both heart disease and cancer.

Molecular biologist Dipak Das, from the University of Connecticut in Farmington, US, gave rats measured doses of red or white Italian wines. In human terms, the amount the animals drank was equivalent to one or two glasses a day. Other animals were fed "polyphenols", health-giving plant chemicals found in white as well as red wine. Resveratrol is one type of polyphenol.

Among rats that suffered induced heart attacks, animals given red or white wine, or polyphenols, experienced less damage than those fed water or straight alcohol, New Scientist magazine reported.

Lab tests suggested that white wine protected the mitochondria in heart cells, the rod-shaped cell structures that act as energy-generating "powerplants". Damage to mitochondria caused by lack of oxygen and nutrients can lead cells to commit suicide.

Mitochondria from wine-drinking rats looked in better shape, and fewer of the animals' heart cells entered a suicidal state. This was also true for rats given three kinds of polyphenol - resveratrol from red wine, and tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol from white.

While not identical, all three compounds are similar in structure and may activate similar biological reactions, Dr Das said.

"The flesh of the grape can do the same job as the skin. We can safely say that one to two glasses of white wine per day works exactly like red wine." He added that evidence may yet emerge of an "English paradox" because beer was also "cardioprotective".