Tag Archives: neurology

Women Smell Better!

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Becca| 9 Comments

 

The following is a guest post written by Marlene Rossman.   See her bio at the end of this post.  Alternatively, read her full bio here: Marlene Rossman Bio. (please click “about” to get her bio).  You may also find her on Facebook by clicking here.

My husband often says that I smell great.  Partly joking, he explains that I have a more pleasing aroma than he does AND that I am very sensitive to aromas and odors in wine/food.  Walking into our home one evening after a nice restaurant dinner, I said, “Honey, I smell gas.”  He immediately said,

“It wasn’t me, it must have been the dog.” I explained that I did not mean that kind of gas, but the gas from the stove.  He did not smell anything, but I found that I had left a burner on very, very low!

So why has fine wine traditionally been the preserve of men? And how has the enjoyment of wine became a man thing? There used to be men-only drinking clubs and tasting events where men gathered to share Parker scores and boast about which wines they had the previous night. In 1978, I joined New York’s Les Amis du Vin and was the only women participant for many years. I was also thoroughly ignored by the all- male group, but that’s another story.

Desmond Morris, who gained fame with his 1967 book The Naked Ape,is a British zoologist who focuses on people. Dr. Morris caused quite a controversy in a 1994 TV documentary when he said, “it has been demonstrated scientifically that women have a better sense of smell than men. Men and women

Photo by StateofIsrael: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8140902367_a8b170c2aa.jpg

evolved with different strengths and weaknesses, and to believe otherwise is to ignore what biology shows to be true… women, for example, will never dominate championship chess because of the nature of their brain functions,” he says. “Men, on the other hand, rightfully should surrender wine-making to women because of the female’s more acute sense of smell.” It has been hypothesized that women’s highly developed sense of smell is a throwback to when women had to identify their offspring by their smell.

Smell is the most important sense with regard to wine because most of what we call wine ‘flavor’ is its aroma. “Women are better at identifying aromas and can detect them at a lower PPM (parts per million) concentration than men,” according to Dr. Ann Noble, a sensory chemist and retired professor from the University of California, Davis, who invented the “Aroma Wheel.” (Dr. Noble’s wheel is credited with enhancing the public understanding of wine tasting and terminology.) That’s not to say that men aren’t terrific wine tasters and appreciators — of course they are (just ask any man!) Anyone can train themselves to be an educated taster, but wine is ultimately about enjoyment.

Backing up Dr. Noble’s research are a number of studies showing women outperform men in tests on odor sensitivity.  Tim Jacobs, Professor of Physiology at Cardiff University (UK), said: “Some studies have shown smells activate a greater region in the brain in women than men. There is a wealth of scientific data showing women’s superiority at identifying and detecting odors at even very small concentrations.” And two other U.S. studies (one in Pennsylvania and one at Yale) showed that women consistently outperformed men in matters of odor identification and smell.

When it comes to wine tasting, the nose will tell you that there have been impartations from oak barrels if you pick up on vanilla, nuts, bread, cereal, or butterscotch smells. Swirl the wine and sniff – if it smells like a wet dog, or a dank basement, chances are the wine has been spoiled by a bad cork (this only happens to about 3% of all wines) A corked wine does not mean that little pieces of cork are floating in the wine.  It means it is spoiled with TCA or trichloroanisole. Try tasting wine when you have a cold, and see what happens. Probably nothing, as the sense of smell is really the sense of taste.

Some research suggests that women’s greater olfactory sensitivity is linked to the hormone estrogen. And a couple of years ago in the United Kingdom, pregnant women were recruited by Tesco (a supermarket) as wine-tasters after bosses found they had better senses of taste and smell. Store chiefs stumbled across the secret when four pregnant women were working in the 40-strong wine department at its HQ. They could all detect subtle differences between wines. Now, bosses are taking on more moms as tasters to choose the best wines to go on sale. Wine-taster Helen McGinn, 31, who was 6 1⁄2 months’ pregnant, said: “Now we will be better equipped than ever to sniff out the best wines for our customers.”

© Marlene Rossman

According to her bio, “Marlene is the wine columnist for Chef magazine and writes on wine for Andy Dias Blue’s Tasting Panel, Sommelier Journal and International Sommelier magazines.  She was the Editor-in-Chief and columnist for Wine Country International magazine, wine columnist/editor for Orange County Home, New York’s Flatiron magazine and wrote for Beverage Media, and Wine Business Monthly. She was the featured commentator with Stephen Spurrier, in a program on “American Wine” produced by Associated Press Television News.  She is a member of the North American Sommelier Association.”  She is a former sommelier and currently the distinguished instructor of wine at UC-Irvine.

Posted in Neuroscience

Tagged , , , , ,

The Neuroscience of Wine Tasting: Dissecting the Intricacies of the Minds’ Eye

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Becca| 17 Comments

“Like” The Academic Wino on Facebook by clicking here!

Follow The Academic Wino on Twitter by clicking here! (@TheAcademicWino)

Last week, I attended the annual Wine Bloggers Conference in Portland, Oregon, which you may read all about in my two part summary series here: Part I and Part II.  I wanted to take one particular experience from the conference and elaborate a little more.  Specifically, I’d like to present to you the fascinating research by Tim Gaiser on the Neuroscience of Wine Tasting and some of the interesting findings that have come out the study.

What is the purpose of this research?

http://www.anselmovineyards.com/
wp-content/uploads/wine-tasting-classes.jpg

The most important implication for this research is in the art of teaching tasting.  According to Gaiser, the challenge of teaching wine tasting to individuals is complex: 1) we have to try and present to students our own vocabulary and experiences for wine, which may or may not resonate with each individual mind; 2) each individual student has a different neurology from everyone else, as well as different memories and experiences; and 3) we have to come up with a way to find the common denominator for tasting, so that each student may more easily learn using their own personal experiences instead of using other people’s experiences that have been impressed upon them. Thus, the overall goal of the research is to improve upon the way we teach wine tasting so that the students learn in a shorter period of time and learn to utilize their own memories and experiences.

How did he do it?

In order to find this common denominator, Gaiser set out to examine the strategies/neurological connections of some of the best wine tasters around the world.  What were the individual strategies of these professional wine tasters?  How are their neurologies connected to allow them to pick out intimate details about the wine?  How can we use this information obtained from the experts to teach others how to taste?

2009 Film Session Results

In recorded tasting sessions with Tim Gaiser in 2009, with the help of Behavioral Scientist, Tim Hallbom, it was found that eye positions and patterns are critical to experienced tasters, and olfactory cues (smells) trigger a specific image memory connection to the tasters which allow them to identify a particular smell or taste from the wine. 

http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2×3798802/
man_smelling_glass_of_red_wine_in_
off-licence_side_3043.jpg


After the film session results, Gaiser set out to repeat the 2009 Film Session experiment with several wine experts. What he found is that these positions and images are unique for every single individual taster, which means finding the common denominator for teaching purposes even more difficult.  In order to find this commonality, each experience needed to be broken down in a sort of sequence, in order to perhaps create a teachable sequence for new and training tasters.  Specifically, the experience was broken down into the following categories: language usage and patterns, eye movements and patterns, olfactory images, internal image maps, and visual constructs for calibrating the structure of the tasting experience.

What were the findings?

One interesting outcome of these tasting sessions was that not only to do individuals make different connections and have different experiences during tasting, but they also taste differently depending upon the reason for tasting.  Were they tasting for pleasure? As a buyer? As a wine reviewer? For teaching purposes?  Depending upon the reason for tasting, the individual strategies of each taster was slightly modified.

One of the first things each taster would notice prior to tasting the wine was the color.  This visual cue gives hints as to how old the wine is, possible grape varieties, and possibly the style of winemaking used.  The tasters were able to identify these characteristics by referencing internal color swatches in their memories from previously experienced/tasted wines.  Often, an internal auditory prompt (such as “what color is this?”) would initiate the image recollection process for identifying certain characteristics elicited from the wine.

Moving on to smelling the wine, Gaiser noted that all of the tasters used an extremely consistent starting eye position or pattern when smelling the wine.  Most tasters had a sort of forward and down eye position while smelling the wine, while one taster appeared to have a darting around-type eye movement position.  This starting position is the place of focus and concentration, and the position which elicits the olfactory image recollection connections in the brain.  Similar to the color, nearly all tasters experienced an auditory prompt in addition to the eye positions to get the tasting started (i.e. “what does this smell like?”).

EXERCISE
How about you?  Where is your starting eye position? 
Take a glass of wine (in a standard wine glass).  Now, simply go about your usual method for smelling the wine.  Where do you notice your eyes are? This position is imprinted in your neurology and wherever you notice your eyes are positioned is the position that elicits the olfactory connections in your brain.  For me, this position was down and slightly centered in front.  You are allowed to close your eyes if that is more comfortable, but note your eyes are still in a particular position.
Once you find this position, keep smelling the wine while moving your eyes in a different position.  Do you notice any change in the aroma?  For me, I noticed that the smell almost went away completely when I changed the position of my eyes.  What did you experience?

Eye Assessing Cues

This study of eye patterns is not new to the study of neurology, as many books and scholarly articles have presented results showing relationships between eye movements and internal memories/representations.  During the 1970s and 80s, several collaborating researchers found that eye pattern movements were associated with the activation of different parts of the brain.  These patterns are near consistent across many individuals, however, for left-handed individuals (such as myself), these patterns can be reversed.  Even if an individual recalls visual cues in a different pattern, this pattern is at the very least consistent and repeatable.  Read this article by Robert Dilts for a more detailed analysis on this research by clicking here.

Courtesy: Robert Dilts (see link above)

Olfactory Image Connections

Another interesting finding from Gaisers’ research is that all tasters represent specific aromas and flavors of the wine with internal images or words, or a combination of the two.  These images were both still or moving, depending upon the individual taster.  Also, these images varied in size, location, color and brightness.  Gaiser also found that there was a relationship between the intensity of the aroma and the structure of the image.  These images are presented in a particular sequence for each individual taster, which combine to be what is referred to as an “image map”, which was found to be unique and vary dramatically from individual to individual.

EXERCISE:
After finding your eye position, go ahead and smell the wine.  What do images do you see?  What sort of pattern do you see these images?  How about the size of the images?  Does the main characteristic of the wine present itself as a very large image? Or perhaps not large but maybe very brightly colored?  What do you see in your minds’ eye? 
For me, I only saw words, which was relatively frustrating since nearly all of the others in the room saw bright and vivid images.  I wonder if my experience was so different because I’m left-handed, or maybe I haven’t had the experiences necessary to elicit the appropriate image for the aroma of that particular wine.
Now, try changing these images.  If you see the image as large and up close, try shrinking the image by moving it further into the background.  What happens to the aroma?  Does it change?  Does the aroma become less pronounced and harder to smell?  Is the image in color?  What happens when you change this image to black and white?  How did the aroma change?

Altering Images

Interestingly, this research found that changing the images in one’s mind changed the tasters’ experience of the wine.  Related to the palate versus the nose, a stronger intensity on the palate versus the nose resulted in the image increasing in size, brightness or location.  As one would expect, a lower intensity on the palate versus the nose resulted in the image decreasing in size, brightness or location.

Structure of Wine

The structure of the wine also elicited image recollection for each individual taster.  For some tasters, a sort of ruler or other calibrating image was presented in the mind, and depending upon the structure of the wine, the focal point of the image would change.  For example, for acidity, one taster saw a 12-inch ruler with marks on it for low, medium, and high. After tasting the wine, the taster was able to focus on and point to a particular point on the ruler in order to identify the acidity of the wine.  Similar mechanisms were found for alcohol content, tannin, and finish.

Example of an image elicited for structural identification in wine tasting

How do these results help us teach others about tasting wine?

According to Gaiser, the results of this study indicate that we should teach students to identify color and age in wine using color spectrums and swatches.  We should also help students become aware of the aroma-to-image connections they already have in their mind, and to utilize these images to identify aromas and flavors in the wine.  The students should be presented with images in order to create new memories in their psyche, particularly if they’ve never experienced a particular aroma or flavor on their own.  Finally, Gaiser claims we should teach students how to taste without wine, as well as teach students to calibrate the structural elements of wine by using internal visual scales.

What are your thoughts?

What do you all think of this research?  Of course, it was not a controlled experiment, thereby the results have to be taken with a grain of salt, but regardless, I found the results very fascinating and worthy of future experimentation and research.   I think it’s a great idea to teach students to utilize their own memories and experiences when tasting the wines, and when these memories and experiences do not exists (say, if they’ve never had a fig before and the main flavor component of the wine they are tasting happens to be fig), they should be given the opportunity to create new image maps in the mind by tasting these elements outside of the wine format.

I did leave slightly frustrated, however, in that I never saw images when smelling the wine.  Gaiser noted later in a question-and-answer session that these images are moving at an extremely fast pace, so perhaps I have not yet learned to slow down these images to a point where I can see them.  I did, however, see words pop up instead of images, which perhaps may be the way my neurological connections function in this type of olfactory recollection.  He mentioned left-handers may experience things differently than right-handers, so perhaps this is another reason why I wasn’t seeing what most others were seeing.  A controlled experiment may get at these types of questions.

I am very interested in hearing what you all think of this research.  Please leave your comments below!

References

“The Neuroscience of Wine Tasting: Unlocking the Tasting Strategies of Genius”. Tim Gaiser, MS. Presentation at the Wine Bloggers Conference August 18th, 2012, Portland, Oregon.

“Eye Movements and NLP” by Robert Dilts: http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/artic14.htm Accessed August 26, 2012.


 I am not a health professional, nor do I pretend to be. Please consult your doctor before altering your alcohol consumption habits. Do not consume alcohol if you are under the age of 21. Do not drink and drive. Enjoy responsibly!

Posted in Neuroscience

Tagged , , , , ,

Wine Consumption May Play a Protective Role in Neurodegenerative Disease

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Becca| 2 Comments
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTc
JsTcUJ8m1s4zRzOojkhj9
_7VjQepE9snUZAekkm5VorFHkK065E5Sl8k

Essential tremor is a neurological syndrome, which results in involuntary shaking, usually noticed most in the hands.  This type of tremor is the most common, with a prevalence of about 0.9%,  and occurs more frequently past the age of 65, when the prevalence rises to about 4.6%.  The exact cause of essential tremor is unknown, though it could be caused by problems with the nerves that control particular muscles.  Essential tremor alone is more of an inconvenience than a serious health threat; however, it has also been known to occur along with other neurological disorders, such as dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurological conditions that can lead to more serious health concerns.

Genetic factors may play a role in whether or not an individual displays essential tremor, or a more serious neurological disease such as Parkinson’s, though it is likely that environmental factors may play a role as well.  Studies have shown conflicting results in regards to protective effects of various environmental stimuli on essential tremor symptoms, with some showing protective effects of cigarette smoking and caffeine intake, while others showing just the opposite. 

The study presented today, though brief in length, aimed to address the question of whether or not these environmental stimuli have any effect on the symptoms of essential tremor.  Published in the journal Movement Disorders earlier this spring, this study evaluated the role of cigarette smoking, coffee consumption, and alcohol consumption (specifically, wine drinking) on essential tremor in adults.

Methods

Study Subjects

The individuals enrolled in this study were patients from six Movement Disorder centers in central-southern Italy (Bari, Catania, Catanzaro, Grosseto, Messina, and Naples).  Those diagnosed with essential tremor were eligible for this study.  Three unrelated healthy controls (not affected by any neurological disease) for each essential tremor subject were also enrolled.  Controls were matched to essential tremor individuals by age and sex.  Most of these controls were recruited from the spouses of those with essential tremor, or those who accompanied the essential tremor patient at the clinic.  All participants, those in both the control and essential tremor groups, underwent a standard neurological examination.

Interviews/Questionnaires

All study participants underwent a face-to-face interview and completed a standardized structured questionnaire.  The questionnaire was broken down into different sections, including a section for demographics, one for clinical information regarding essential tremor and other neurological diseases, and one for environmental factors such as smoking, drinking coffee, and drinking alcohol.  For the cigarette smoking factor, questions involved how many cigarettes smoked per day, and the number of years smoked.  For the coffee consumption factor, questions involved the duration and the number of cups consumed per day.  Finally, for the alcohol consumption factor, questions involved the duration and the type of alcohol consumed, and whether they could be classified as “never drinkers”, “occasional drinkers”, or “regular drinkers” (current or quit).

Results

  •       83 essential tremor patients participated in this study.

o   38 were men and 45 were women, with a mean age of 68.2 +/- 8.6 years.

  •       245 matched controls participated in this study.

o   113 were men and 132 were women, with a mean age of 68.4 +/- 9.7 years.

  •       The mean age at the onset of essential tremor was 53.2 +/- 17.9 years, with mean disease duration of 12.6 +/- 13.2 years.
  •       48.1% of essential tremor patients reported a positive family history of the disease.
  •       Cigarette smoking and coffee consumption were not associated with essential tremor.
  •       Due to the low numbers of regular beer drinkers (0 essential tremor patients, only 6 controls) and regular liquor drinkers (only 2 essential tremor patients and 3 controls), only wine consumption was considered and analyzed (26.8% of essential tremor patients and 38.8% of controls).
  •       There was a highly significant negative association between wine drinking and essential tremor (i.e., drink more wine, experience fewer tremors).

o   This association became even stronger after controlling for family history of essential tremor.

o   There was a significant decreasing risk of essential tremor with increasing number of glasses of wine per day, with a greater risk reduction (of about 86%) for patients consuming more than 3 glasses per day.

  •       Wine consumption preceded the onset of disease (in all cases): the mean duration of wine consumption was 48.9 +/- 12.3 years, and the mean disease duration was 12.8 +/- 13.2 years. 

o   86.4% of the essential tremor patients stated wine consumption started more than 30 years before the onset of disease (and none had quit drinking).

  •       90% of the subjects that were categorized as regular drinkers consumed up to 4 glasses per day (considers light to moderate consumption).

Discussion and Conclusions

Unlike some studies, this study found that cigarette smoking did not show protective or damaging effects against essential tremor.  Similarly, coffee consumption also showed no effect on essential tremor symptoms.  Interestingly, however, was that wine consumption had a highly significant negative association with essential tremor.  Basically, the more wine one consumes, the less severe the symptoms of essential tremor are exhibited.  Of course, there wasn’t enough information/data in this study to rule out the possibility of too much alcohol consumption, which in other systems have shown possible harmful effects of drinking too much, regardless of whether or not the same substance shows protective effects in more moderate amounts.

Many other studies have found that resveratrol, along with many other polyphenols, have protective cardiovascular characteristics, as well as antioxidant activities in consumers of red wine.  The latter characteristic could potentially be involved in this reduction of essential tremor in wine consuming patients.  In many neurodegenerative diseases, not unlike Parkinson’s, it has been shown that there is an excess of reactive oxygen species present in the brain.  Polyphenols in red wine (i.e., resveratrol) may act in an antioxidative manner to reduce the amounts of free radical oxygen species in the brain, thus reducing the symptoms of the disease.  Prolonged exposure to red wine could create a more oxygen-stable environment in the brain, thus potentially delaying the onset of neurological disease, or at the very least reducing the symptoms.

Though these types of studies sometimes produce results that are slightly bias, the high level of significance in this particular study and the extreme length of time from the onset of wine consumption to the onset of essential tremor indicate that the results of this study show promise to those affected by this neurological disease.  Of course, more detailed studies would need to be done, but the initial research here is hopeful.  I would like to see a study that is able to include all types of alcohol, to get a better sense of whether it is the alcohol itself playing a protective role, or if it is in fact the polyphenols in red wine that are giving these protective results.  I would also like to see a study that includes essential tremor patients, in addition to patients experiencing various stages of Parkinson’s disease.  If red wine helps with essential tremor, could it help alleviate some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease as well?  I’ll be keeping my eye out…

How about you all?  Do you have any experience with essential tremor or other neurological diseases?  Have you noticed if red wine consumption helps with your symptoms? 

Please feel free to leave any comments below!

Source:  10.1002/mds.23603
I am not a health professional, nor do I pretend to be. Please consult your doctor before altering your alcohol consumption habits. Do not consume alcohol if you are under the age of 21. Do not drink and drive. Enjoy responsibly!

Posted in Health

Tagged , , , ,

Resveratrol Protects Against Damage Caused by Spinal Cord Injury

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Becca| Leave a comment

Spinal cord injuries occur most often after motor vehicle accidents, sports, falls, or violence.  There are varying levels of spinal cord injury, of which there may be more or less physical and social impairments, depending upon how badly the area was injured to start.  After the initial injury, several immunological and histological cellular events occur (i.e. inflammation, apoptosis, and cell death, etc. ) which create secondary damage, which further worsens the initial injury.

http://topnews.in/health/files/Spine-Injury-Lawyers.jpg

Basically, after the initial injury, there is a large immune response, which results in the death of neurons and other cells, causing overall degeneration and impaired neurological function.  More specifically, this response has been shown to be caused by a multitude of factors, including oxidative radical stress, inflammation, and neuronal apoptosis.  At the present time, there is little to no treatment for this secondary damage, which if treated would allow for significantly more recovery from the initial spinal cord injury.

Resveratrol, a phenolic compound found in wine, has been found to have many health benefits.  Studies have found it to have beneficial functions, including, but not limited to; anti-oxidation, anti-platelet agglomeration, anti-inflammation, and anti-tumor growth.  In animal models, some studies have found resveratrol to play protective roles in epilepsy, cerebral ischemia, and neuronal degeneration.  It is from these results that the authors of the study under review today, which was published earlier this year in the journal Brain Research, determined that resveratrol may play a protective role against secondary damage caused by spinal cord injury.

Methods

36 rats were randomly assigned into three treatment groups: sham (surgery with no spinal cord injury), control (surgery resulting in spinal cord injury), and resveratrol (surgery with spinal cord injury, with 200mg/kg resveratrol administered three times daily for three days after the injury).

Neuronal function was measured by two individuals unaware of the treatment types using locomotive activities of the rats, including hindlimb movements, joint movements, weight support, limb coordination, stability, stepping, paw placement, toe clearance, and tail position.  Locomotion was evaluated 24, 48, and 72 hours after the spinal cord injury.

Many other biochemical, histological, and immunochemical analyses were done to evaluate the damage of the spinal cord injury to the rats.  If you’d like more details, let me know.  Otherwise, I’ve excised this information for space consideration.

Results

Neural Function

  •       No neuronal dysfunction occurred in the sham group.
  •       Severe neuronal dysfunction occurred in the control group.
  •       The resveratrol-treated rats showed significantly improved neuronal function than the control rats.

o   This suggests that resveratrol treatment improves neuronal function after spinal cord injury in rats.

  •       The sham group showed normal morphology and pathology of spinal cord cells and tissues, with no neuronal apoptosis present.
  •       In the control group, there was significantly more hemorrhaging and damaged cell morphology.  Significantly more necrotic/dead cells were found in the control group than in the sham group.  Overall damage was significantly higher in the control group than the sham group.
  •       Rats in the resveratrol treatment group had spinal cord cellular damage between that of the control group and the sham group.

o   These results suggest that resveratrol treatment showed a partial restoration of neuronal function, especially in the areas of cellular nutrient supply and energy synthesis.

Oxidation

  •       The superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity of the control group was significantly decreased after spinal cord injury, compared to the sham group (i.e. more damage caused by oxidation).
  •       Resveratrol treatment significantly rescued the SOD activity rats (i.e. less damage caused by oxidation).

o   These results suggest an anti-oxidation role of resveratrol after spinal cord injury.

Inflammation

  •       No inflammatory cells were present in the spinal cords of sham treatment rats.
  •        In the control group, there were significantly more inflammatory cells present in the gray and white matter of the spinal cord.
  •       For resveratrol-treated rats, the number of inflammatory cells present in the spinal cord was dramatically reduced.
  •       Inflammatory proteins were present in low levels in the sham rats.
  •        In the control group, the levels of inflammatory proteins significantly increased after spinal cord injury.
  •       Resveratrol-treated rats showed significantly less expression of inflammatory proteins, likely due to a suppression of spinal cord-induced upregulation of inflammatory proteins, though levels were still higher than the sham group.

o   These results suggest resveratrol may significantly decrease inflammatory cells in spinal cord injury-damaged tissues of rats.

Apoptosis (Cell Death)

  •       No apoptotic cells (dead/dying cells) were present in the sham group.
  •        A large number of apoptotic cells (dead/dying cells) were present in the control group.
  •       Resveratrol treatment significantly reduced the number of apoptotic cells after spinal cord injury.

o   These results suggest that resveratrol may successfully inhibit apoptosis (cell death) of spinal cord cells as a result of spinal cord injury in rats.

  •        DNA remained intact in the cells of sham rats.
  •       In the control groups, cells with DNA damage was widely present in both white and gray matter cells (mostly in white).
  •       Resveratrol treatment significantly reduced the number of cells with DNA damage.

o   These results suggest resveratrol has protective effects on neuronal apoptosis caused by spinal cord injury in rats.

For more specifics on morphological, biochemical, histological, immunological, and pathological results, feel free to ask, and I can provide more details.  All results have been summarized for easier reading (assuming most, if not all, of readers are not pathologists of any sort).

Conclusions

The results of the study presented today show promising results for treatment of secondary damage caused by spinal cord injury.  Since there is little known regarding successful treatments of these sorts of injuries, significant results such as these presented here are very hopeful to those struggling with these types of spinal cord injuries.  Overall, the results of the study showed that resveratrol significantly improved the damage caused by spinal cord injury, be it neuronal or pathological.

One thing to keep in mind is that this study was done in the rat model, and not with humans.  Due to the infancy of the research, human research is not possible until it can be shown to be successful in animal models.  The next likely step would be further studies in the rat, potentially followed by studies in the pig, and perhaps maybe even clinical trials in humans. 

The next question would be:  was the dose given to the rats comparable to an acceptable dose for humans?  Would it have to be in pill form?  Or could those with spinal cord injuries simply drink red wine to help reduce the damage?  How long after the injury does this protective role of resveratrol work?  Is there a point in time in which not even resveratrol can help with decreasing injury?  Based on my experience with other immunological models dealing with ischemia-reperfusion injuries, there is a window in which these types of treatments will work, and that after a certain amount of time, the protective role is lost.  Future studies should address these questions and more.

For now, the results of these studies show promise for resveratrol, a common agent in red wine, acting as a protective agent against secondary damage caused by spinal cord injury. 

I’d love to hear what you all think!  Please feel free to leave your comments below!

http://www.whatson.co.za/uploads/event_57259.jpg

Source:  doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.11.061
I am not a health professional, nor do I pretend to be. Please consult your doctor before altering your alcohol consumption habits. Do not consume alcohol if you are under the age of 21. Do not drink and drive. Enjoy responsibly!

Posted in Health

Tagged , , , ,