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| Quercitin |
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What is it? |
| Red wines get their color from the grape skins on which they stand during the first stages of fermentation. At the same time, they pick up quercitin, a flavonoid, which may be the reason the French — who accompany their egg-, butter- and cream-rich meals with bottles of red wine — have fewer heart attacks than nationalities for which wine is less important. The death rate from heart disease among the French is 75 deaths per 100,000 as compared to more than twice that for Americans. Quercitin, University of Wisconsin researchers now believe, may not only raise blood levels of HDL ("good" cholesterol) but also act as a blood thinner. But there's a downside, too. In different studies, extracts of green beans, lettuce, paprika and rhubarb (all high in quercitin) have caused mutations, even cancer in lab rats. Onions, too, are loaded with quercitin, and cattle grazing fields overrun with wild onions have developed anemia; some have died. Other researchers believe that what's been dubbed the French paradox, the low incidence of heart disease among a people whose diet is notoriously high in FAT and cholesterol, is due to a powerful ANTIOXIDANT in red table wine called resveratrol. |
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