Abstract
Regular, moderate consumption of red wine is linked to a reduced risk of coronary heart disease and to lower overall mortality1, but the relative contribution of wine's alcohol and polyphenol components to these effects is unclear2. Here we identify procyanidins as the principal vasoactive polyphenols in red wine and show that they are present at higher concentrations in wines from areas of southwestern France and Sardinia, where traditional production methods ensure that these compounds are efficiently extracted during vinification. These regions also happen to be associated with increased longevity in the population.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 52 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.83 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Renaud, S. C., Gueguen, R., Siest, G. & Salamon, R. Arch. Intern. Med. 159, 1865–1870 (1999).
Di Castelnuovo, A., Rotondo, S., Iacoviello, L., Donati, M. B. & De Gaetano, G. Circulation 105, 2836–2844 (2002).
Kris-Etherton, P. M. & Keen, C. L. Curr. Opin. Lipidol. 13, 41–49 (2002).
Auger, C. et al. J. Agric. Food. Chem. 52, 5297–5302 (2004).
Fitzpatrick, D. F., Hirschfield, S. L. & Coffey, R. G. Am. J. Physiol. 265, H774–H778 (1993).
Hashimoto, M. et al. Am. J. Cardiol. 88, 1457–1460 (2001).
Corder, R. et al. Nature 414, 863–864 (2001).
Waterhouse, A. L. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 957, 21–36 (2002).
Poulain, M. et al. Exp. Gerontol. 39, 1423–1429 (2004).
Shoji, T. et al. J. Agric. Food. Chem. 54, 884–892 (2006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
Roger Corder has received funding for research and to attend symposia from Catena Wines, Argentina, and Canandaigua Wine Company, New York, US. He is also author of The Wine Diet, scheduled for publication in January 2007 by Little, Brown Book Group.
Supplementary information
Suppplementary Information (download DOC )
Identification of the main vasoactive components in red wine (DOC 451 kb)
Vascular health, longevity and procyanidin-rich red wines (download PDF )
Higher levels of vasoactive polyphenols found in red wines from areas of greater longevity (PDF 234 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Corder, R., Mullen, W., Khan, N. et al. Red wine procyanidins and vascular health. Nature 444, 566 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/444566a
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/444566a
This article is cited by
-
Biologia Futura: treatment of wastewater and water using tannin-based coagulants
Biologia Futura (2022)
-
Magnetic imprinted nanoparticles with synergistic tailoring of covalent and non-covalent interactions for purification and detection of procyanidin B2
Microchimica Acta (2021)
-
Isolation and characterization of a novel oligomeric proanthocyanidin with significant anti-cancer activities from grape stems (Vitis vinifera)
Scientific Reports (2019)
-
Antioxidants: good, bad or indifferent
Bone Marrow Transplantation (2019)
-
Vinegar production to valorise Citrus bergamia by-products
European Food Research and Technology (2019)
