Category: Nutrition

Super Healthy Ingredients That Are Not So Super (4 of 4)

And here we are. Although this is the last installment of the not-so-super ingredients, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other super food, super essential oil and the likes on the market that aren’t what they seem. What you, as the customer should really think when reading fancy marketing claims are:

  • Who makes the claim? Independent study or the manufacturers?
  • How was the claim proven? Double blind study or small, biased study?
  • Has it been proven by unrelated third party? Or this “proof” cannot be replicated elsewhere?

So without further ado, let us discuss the last of our super ingredients:

Red Wine

Alleged benefits: Super Anti-Aging, Anti-Cancer Elixir

The French has always extolled red wine as their secret of longevity known as the French paradox.  Ever since people started isolating resveratrol from the red grape, different research groups have been getting positive results on isolated researches on how it would react to the body.  This includes Italian researchers in 2006 who obtained positive results in fighting colon cancer, German researchers in 2008 on its genetic stability effect, and even University of Hubei in China confirmed in 2018 on its anti-aging impact.  All this research is done in isolation, using isolated resveratrol.  The most recent population study done in Chianti in 2014 on men and women over the age of 65 actually failed to show any direct correlation between red wine consumption and markers for cancer and tumor.  Chianti is a famed red wine producing region in Italy

Conclusion: Drink red wine if you are a wine drinker and savor the flavor, and drink in moderation (1~2 glass per day at most).  As for the longevity effect of red wine, the effect seems minuscule on the actual population compared to a host of other known factors.  Hong Kong and Japan are two places with longest life expectancy and both population do not traditionally consume red wine.