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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Valuation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Dodgy Ticker who wrote (5222)	12/24/2001 12:52:33 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 52153

Thanks, Bob - I appreciate the thought, and here's wishing a happy holiday to all this thread's readers and contributors! And for some extra holiday cheer, a little Lancet squib to justify an extra glass (or two) of wine: Red or white wine with your turkey, sir? A new mechanism to explain the "French paradox"--the observation that coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence in France is low despite high dietary intakes of saturated fat--is proposed in Nature. Researchers at Barts and the London School of Medicine (London, UK) suggest that moderate red wine consumption may reduce CHD risk by reducing endothelin-1 synthesis in vascular endothelial cells. "Endothelin-1 is a key mediator in atherogenesis", explains lead author Roger Corder, "and we have discovered that all red wines, but not rosé or white wines, reduce endothelin-1 synthesis in vitro". The researchers now hope to start clinical studies to see how red wine consumption affects endothelin-1 concentrations in vivo. The first hints that the French are unique in terms of CHD risk date back two centuries, says Serge Renaud (Université Bordeaux 2, France), to when an Irish physician wrote that a major protective factor for CHD was being French. "It is not clear who first used the term 'French paradox'", says Renaud, "but in 1992, I proposed that it might be explained by the French tendency to drink alcohol regularly in moderation". Since then, several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the paradox. Corder's experiments, says Renaud, "provide another mechanism and additional confirmation of wine's role in it". Corder's team tested extracts of 23 red wines, one rosé, and four white wines, and a red-grape juice for inhibition of endothelin-1 synthesis by bovine aortic endothelial cells. On average, 5µl of red wine extract per ml of tissue culture medium inhibited endothelin-1 synthesis by 50%. By contrast, 35µl/ml of red-grape juice were needed for a similar effect and the other wine extracts were ineffective (Nature 2001; 414: 863-64). "Vin de tables were often as efficacious as chateau wines", comments Corder, "an observation that fits in well with the French paradox given that the average French citizen is most likely to drink a vin de table with his lunch on a regular basis". Polyphenols are probably responsible for the protective effect of wine, say Corder and Renaud, but there are thousands of polyphenols in wine so finding the active one may be hard. Furthermore, different polyphenols may affect CHD risk through different mechanisms. For example, Renaud thinks that wine may protect against myocardial infarction by reducing platelet aggregation and he claims that some champagnes do this as effectively as red wine. Be that as it may, replies Corder, "I shall be drinking red wine with my turkey on Christmas day. I can't imagine drinking anything else with it." Jane Bradbury thelancet.com Peter