In the Winery


Resveratrol: Separating fact from fiction...


Compound found in red wine continues to be a focus of research into its health benefits. By Gary Strachan


T


he resveratrol story could easily be turned into a novel with good guys and bad guys, deception,


intrigue and death.


It began with a 1992 article in the medical journal Lancet. The news was that French diets had high saturated fat, the French smoked heavily and yet they lived longer than Americans who were cutting back on smoking and had on average, a diet lower in saturated fat from meat and dairy products. The authors concluded that the major difference between the two population groups was red wine consumption and they speculated that red wine intake was responsible for the longevity of the French.


The speculation was accepted as fact and was picked up by the media. It impacted the wine industry immediately. Red wine sales went through the roof in the United States. Millions of dollars were spent to pull out white grape vines and replace them with reds.


The next question was: Of all the compounds in wine, which could have such a dramatic influence on longevity? Wine contains a group of compounds classified as phenolics. Thousands of them occur as natural products in plants. Many have biological activity. The common structure that all of these compounds share is a six-carbon ring, but by adding additional rings or side chains the number of different compounds that can be classified as phenolics is almost infinite. Resveratrol is classified as a stilbene, which is part of the flavonoid group of phenolic compounds.


Trying to remember the names of phenolic compounds according to


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Spring 2015 27


chemical structure is a nightmare, so most of them have common names derived from plants where they occur, a lesser nightmare. Resveratrol gets its name from the fact that it is derived from resorcinol and occurs in Veratrum species. A Canadian scientist was one of the earliest to recognize the importance of


resveratrol and describe the factors affecting the level at which


resveratrol occurs in different red wines. There is a huge market for dietary


supplements (called nutraceuticals) that confer health benefits. Since most of these are naturally occurring substances, anyone can produce them and there is so much competition that almost nobody makes any money.


If you could find a way to patent resveratrol and sell it as a prescription drug, it would be a huge advantage. One glib American scientist reasoned that a slight change to the chemical structure might either retain or improve the biological activity of resveratrol


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