Evidence for Grape, Wine and Tea Polyphenols as Modulators of Atherosclerosis and Ischemic Heart Disease in Humans

ABSTRACT

The past de cade has seen much re search ac tiv ity cit ing the health ben e fits of tea and wine, and in par tic u lar red wine, in of fer ing pro tec tion from car dio vas cu lar dis ease. Al though the ex act mech a nisms to ac count for these ob ser va tions are not known, stud ies in ex per i men tal an i mals and hu mans have sup ported hy poth e ses re lated to the an ti ox i-dant ac tiv ity of polyphenolic sub stances in wine, grapes and tea. Grape, wine or tea con sump tion have been re ported to lower con cen tra tions of low-den sity lipoproteins (LDL), re duce the rate of LDL ox i da tion and raise con cen tra tions of high den sity lipoproteins (HDL) in plasma; factors that may re duce an in di vid ual's risk of heart dis ease. In ad di tion, these sub stances pos sess po tent an ti ox i dant ac tiv ity that may con trib ute to these ef fects. Other stud ies also sug gest that these polyphenolic sub -stances can pro long the time for platelet ag gre ga tion and blood clot forma tion, and may stim u late vasorelaxation of blood ves sels. To date, the re sults have been tran sient and the in vi tro ef fects have been more pro -nounced than those ob served in vivo. This re view crit i cally an a lyzes the avail able data to de ter mine ev i dence for the health claims at trib uted to wine and tea in the pro tec tion against car dio vas cu lar dis ease in hu mans.

Key Words:

• Grapes
• wine
• tea
• polyphenols
• flavonoids
• ischemic heart dis ease
• LDL ox i da tion
• hemostasis
• hu mans