October 1, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The School of Medicine at UAB has received a $7.6 million, 5-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to further examine the heart-protective benefits of moderate wine consumption.

Francois Booyse, Ph.D., cardiovascular disease expert and prominent wine researcher, will lead a multi-disciplinary team of more than 17 researchers in exploring the cellular, molecular and genetic mechanisms by which wine components (alcohol and polyphenols), work to reduce and prevent heart disease and deaths related to heart disease.

“These studies will provide new understanding of these mechanisms and should provide opportunities for future development of new drugs and/or therapeutic strategies that can be used to effectively mimic these protective effects. In turn, this could substantially reduce the overall long-term risk for heart disease,” Booyse said.

The grant consists of multidisciplinary projects that will examine different ways in which wine-component molecules interact with heart cells (cardiomyocytes) and blood cells that line the vessels of the heart (endothelial cells). Each individual project will attempt to answer very specific questions about how those molecules interact on the cellular, molecular and gene levels to induce a protective benefit.

Booyse, who considers the grant a major milestone, says it is significant because “it is the first major programmatic effort ever to be recognized and funded by the NHLBI that will focus specifically on the molecular mechanisms underlying the health-related benefits of moderate alcohol/wine consumption. It represents the first major consensus by both the scientific and health professionals of the emerging importance of the scientific implications, issues and unanswered questions remaining in the rapidly evolving area of wine and cardiovascular health.”

In recent years, several large-scale studies have shown that light-to-moderate drinkers of alcoholic beverages, particularly red wine, have significantly lower risk for heart disease than nondrinkers or heavy drinkers. However, Booyse said the mechanisms responsible for the protective benefits are poorly defined and understood. Therefore, this new grant hopes to better identify and define some of these mechanisms and how they work together, collectively, to produce heart benefits.

For the past seven years, Booyse and his research team have developed new and improved methods of studying alcohol- and polyphenol-induced changes on the heart’s pumping function, using live, cultured, endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes. Their studies have focused on the ability of wine components to alter cellular and vascular functions to reduce the overall risk for developing blood clots in the heart’s blood vessels, thereby reducing the risk for heart attacks and overall heart-disease-related deaths. The combined studies served as the major catalyst for the new multi-project NHLBI grant.

Booyse adds that recent research suggests that combined effects of alcohol plus other red wine components affecting many diverse functions, rather than a single mechanism, protect vessels from the ravages of coronary artery disease in a variety of ways.