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Heavy
Metals Found in Wine
Red, White Wines Carry Dangerous Doses of Toxic Metals
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Red and
white wines from most European nations carry potentially
dangerous doses of at least seven heavy metals, U.K.
researchers find.
A single
glass of even the most contaminated wine isn't
poisonous. But drinking just one glass of wine a day --
a common habit in Europe and the Americas -- might be
very hazardous indeed, calculate biomolecular scientist
Declan P. Naughton, PhD, and Andrea Petroczi of Kingston
University, London.
Naughton
calculated "target hazard quotients" (THQs) for wines
from 15 countries in Europe, South America, and the
Middle East. The measure was designed by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to determine safe levels
of frequent, long- term exposure to various chemicals.
A THQ
over 1 indicates a health risk. Typical wines, Naughton
found, have a THQ ranging from 50 to 200 per glass. Some
wines had THQs up to 300. By comparison, THQs that have
raised concerns about heavy-metal contamination of
seafood typically range between 1 and 5.
"I was
surprised at this finding, and would be very interested
if regulatory authorities and food-safety people will
look at this," Naughton tells WebMD. "The wine industry
should look at ways to remove these metals from wine, or
to find out where the metals come from and prevent this
from happening."
The
metal ions that accounted for most of the contamination
were vanadium, copper, and manganese. But four other
metals with THQs above 1 also were found: zinc, nickel,
chromium, and lead.
Some 30
other metal ions were measured in the wines, but THQs
could not be calculated because safe daily levels for
these metals are not known.
All of
these oxidating metal ions pose potential problems. But
the manganese contamination particularly worries
behavioral neurotoxicologist Bernard Weiss, PhD,
professor of environmental medicine at the University of
Rochester, N.Y. Weiss was not involved in the Naughton
study.
"From
the point of view of just one of these metals in wine,
manganese, I would be concerned," Weiss tells WebMD.
"Any time you see numbers like they have in this study,
you begin to scratch your head and wonder about the
effects over a long period of ingestion: Not one glass
of wine last Tuesday, but a glass a day over a
lifetime."
Manganese accumulation in the brain, Weiss notes, has
been linked to Parkinson's disease.
Safe Metal Levels in Wines From Italy,
Brazil, Argentina
Wines
from three of the 15 nations studied had safe levels of
heavy metals: Italy, Brazil, and Argentina.
Based on
the maximum THQs for wines from each nation, here's the
list of the worst offenders:
Hungary
Slovakia
France
Austria
Spain
Germany
Portugal
Greece
Czech
Republic
Jordan
Macedonia
Serbia
Hungary
and Slovakia had maximum potential THQ values over 350.
France, Austria, Spain, Germany, and Portugal -- nations
that import large quantities of wine to the U.S. -- had
maximum potential THQ values over 100.
Argentinean and Italian wines did not have significant
maximum THQ values.
"If you
buy a bottle of wine, the only thing it tells you on the
label is the amount of alcohol. I like the idea of
labeling wines with the amounts of heavy metals they
contain," Naughton says. "Many wines don't have these
metals. So let customers vote by choice whether they
want the heavy metals."
Where do
the heavy metals come from? That's unknown. Naughton
says possible sources include the soil of the vineyards
in which the wine grapes are grown, the fungicides
sprayed on the grapes, and possible contaminants in the
yeasts used to ferment the wine.
Naughton
and Petroczi did not directly measure heavy metals in
the wines, but calculated THQs from data published in
scientific journals. Since there was no data on heavy
metals in U.S. wines, they did not include North
American wines in their analysis.
Weiss
says he'd like to see such data. He'd be interested to
see whether national health databases can link health
problems to daily wine consumption, and whether wine
drinkers have higher concentrations of heavy metals in
their bodies than teetotalers do.
In their
paper, Naughton and Petroczi note that drinking red wine
has been linked to health benefits because it contains
antioxidant compounds.
"However, the finding of hazardous levels of metal ions
which can be pro-oxidants leads to a major question mark
over the protective benefits of red wine," they suggest.
The
findings appear in the Oct. 29 issue of the open-access
Chemistry Central Journal.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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"From the point of view of just
one of these metals in wine, manganese, I would
be concerned" |
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