Acute Effects of Wine Consumption on Platelet Aggregation, and on Inflammatory / Oxidative Stress Markers

The last few years, epidemiologic studies indicate that regular moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack, as well as with lower mortality. More specific, a J or U-shaped association between alcohol consumption and the incidence of coronary heart disease have been suggested, which means that there was lower disease risk in moderate alcohol consumers than in abstainers or heavy drinkers.

The scientific interest was focused on wine after the term "French paradox" was introduced, in order to describe the epidemiological observation that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats. The paradox was attributed to the moderate consumption of red wine by French. Even though many clinical studies have occurred since then, only few of them report the postprandial effect of wine, mainly focusing on the study of oxidative stress markers and endothelium dysfunction. Also, a limited number of publications refer to the postprandial wine effect upon platelet aggregation, which is an indicative marker for inflammation / thrombosis and atherosclerosis.

The limited clinical evidence prompted us to investigate the postprandial effect of wine consumption upon platelet aggregation, inflammation and oxidation markers, by undertaking a clinical study of crossover design. The subjects randomly consumed 4ml of drink [Robola or Cabernet Sauvignon or 12.5% ethanol or water]/kg of individual, parallel with a standardized meal, which consisted of 30.8% carbohydrates, 12.0% proteins and 53.1% fat. The meal total energy was 787.2 kcal.