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Care for some wine with that heavy metal?
Researchers report this week that potentially dangerous levels of heavy metals exist in more than 100 types of red and white wines from a dozen countries.
British scientists say the wines (their brands and grape type aren't identified) contain amounts of the industrial metals vanadium, copper and manganese that exceed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) health standards, according to their analysis in Chemistry Central Journal. Wines from three additional countries — Argentina, Brazil and Italy — didn’t contain risky levels of the metals.
"It was quite an eye-opener to see these values in a lot of the wines we looked at," says study author Declan Naughton, a professor of biomeolecular science at Kingston University in London.
A target hazard quotient (THQ) exceeding one could cause health effects over a lifetime, according to an EPA risk-estimation formula comparing the time a person is exposed to a toxin and its established reference dose. Some of the glasses of wines contained THQ levels as high as 300, according to the review, which analyzed previous studies of metal concentrations in the wines. "Drinking a 250 milliliter- (8.5 ounce-) glass of one of these wines would be a potential health hazard over a lifetime," Naughton says.
The estimation formula on which the conclusions are based was developed by the EPA for Superfund sites and has been used to assess the risk of exposure to chemicals in seafoods. The analysis didn't explore how much of the metals would be absorbed from consuming the wines. Vanadium can cause lung irritation and respiratory problems if it's inhaled, but its effects from ingestion aren't known, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. It's typically used to produce alloys for engines.
Consuming too much manganese, which is used to make steel and batteries, can cause manganism — slow, clumsy movements, the agency says; research indicates it may also contribute to Parkinson's disease.
Copper aggravates oxidative damage, a characteristic feature of inflammation, according to other research; inflammation is associated with rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease and cancer. (Copper is used in the production of wires and other electronic equipment.)
It's not clear how the heavy metals got into the wines, Naughton says. Some possible sources: the soil where wine grapes are grown, the yeast used to ferment the grapes, or fungicides sprayed on vines.
The wines in the review were from Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Macedonia, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia and Spain.
The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) uses a mass spectrometer instrument to measure heavy metals in wines — not the THQ estimation formula — when it receives reports of possible problems, says Art Resnick, a TTB spokesman. The agency forwards elevated levels to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine whether they're dangerous.
"It's not something we do routinely, but we have done it and have not had any negative health determination from the FDA," Resnick says. But, he notes, "Other than lead, there are no statutory limits on the limit of any of these components."
The analysis troubles Gladys Horiuchi, a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute of California, a trade group. "We're trying to check the credibility of the study," Horiuchi says. "We're concerned about the perceptions of wine because the publicity … raises questions in people's minds about wine in general."
Naughton says that wines found to contain heavy metals should be labeled to give consumers a heads up, much as they are labeled to alert consumers if they contain sulfites, a preservative commonly used in foods and alcoholic beverages that can cause serious reactions in people allergic to them.
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10 Comments
Add CommentYou may be aware that it is believed the Romans poisoned themselves with lead, by unwittingly ingesting it from their lead-lined water supply aquaducts. Another theory is that since they preferred sweet wine, they used their preferred sweetener: Lacking a source of sugar, and honey being difficult to obtain in large quantities, they made lead acetate, a very sweet-tasting substance, by cooking vinegar in lead pots until the liquid was evaporated, then scraping out the remaining white residue. Voila! the end of the Roman Empire! Are we doing the same unwitting thing with our wines??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are really not too much foods healthy enough to eat and drink...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDrink beer, no problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow that you have my attention: Were any American wines tested?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! Something that isn't new.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho is following up on this? Will it just be forgotten so the French don't start a trade war with the US Argentina and Australia whose wines will obviously benefit, especially if countries impose limits to how much manganese and copper can be in a wine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy analysis of their report suggests that the amount of these minerals they use to trigger concern may be too small, perhaps by as much as 10 or more. They used the following oral reference doses as the values to trigger a hazard: 1 ug/kg/day for vanadium and 1.4 ug/kg/day for manganese. The units are microgram per kilogram body weight per day. Accepting their body weight reference values of 83 kg for men and 70 kg for women, this translates into 83 ug/day (men) and 70 ug/day (women) for vanadium, and 116 ug/day (men) and 98 ug/day (women) for manganese, as the daily consumption levels that would trigger a hazard quotient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sources for their "oral reference doses" were citations #2 and #13 in their paper:
The former does not address Vanadium or Manganese and I cannot get a copy of the latter, so I cannot verify the reference values from these sources.
However, I was able to find a USDA report that refers to the National Academy of Sciences publication, Dietary Reference Intakes: The Essential Guide to Nutrient Requirements, 2006. In the USDA report, the tolerable upper intake level (UL) for vanadium is 1800 ug/day and manganese is 11000 ug/day.
These values are approximately 20 and 100 times higher than the values used by Hague et al for triggering a hazard. More to the point, the amount of vanadium they found in the wine averaged 140 ug/L or 35 ug/glass (they assumed one 250 mL glass per day), so the daily intake of vanadium they would estimate from wine would be only 1/50th of the amount the National Academy suggests could be a problem. A similar calculation for manganese shows that wine would contribute only 1/100th of the amount that would raise a concern.
The same trigger values were used in a later report suggesting a large number of European wines might be hazardous, Heavy metal ions in wines: meta-analysis of target hazard quotients reveal health risks. Chemistry Central Journal 2008, 2:22.
Thus, while I cannot find their source for the low amounts of vanadium and manganese that could be a health concern, I would be willing to stand by the National Academy of Sciences estimates for safe levels of these trace minerals. And, assuming their analysis of these minerals in wine is correct, it would appear that their claim that "a very high THQ value suggesting potential hazardous exposure" for red wine consumption is erroneous.
Andrew Waterhouse, Wine Chemist, University of California
Thanks Andrew. I never saw a link to their report and wouldn't have known the "safe" values anyway, so to see your info is comforting. I'll still prefer new world wines anyway though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to a study * widely repeated by the media and the Internet, French wines are contaminated by heavy metals. However, look a little closer, it turns out that this study is far from reliable. Members of the association Les 4 v�rit�s sur le vin led the investigation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA number of commentators have taken the opportunity to suggest or just writing that the health benefits of moderate consumption of wine were canceled by the contamination.
Our group Les 4 v�rit�s sur le vin was alerted by several quirks in this study and wanted more.
As the study is a meta-analysis (study of several other studies), we went to see how the studies were classified who served as bases for research.
Simply put we just study the three studies which scans the French wines.
None of these studies had been published in a journal with an Impact Factor of at least 5000 and none was part of the first decile.
Nevertheless, we continued to seek saying that we still see how made these studies and what were their results.
We were very surprised to see one of two studies which said non-effervescent wines , the study Slovak, had prepared its findings on 3 white wines purchased in a store in Bratislava We can not say whether a representative sample of the French wine production.
The second study, Spanish it had studied the effervescent Spanish and French, and the method used as the measuring instrument cover highly doubtful.
The third study is a study where Portuguese French wines studied and quiet lead-contaminated products had been before 1992, when the capsules blocking lead has been banned precisely because of this same risk, researchers Portuguese apologizing d use so old analysis
Conclusion 1: in the end, all our fears were founded: the study of metals, in addition to bias take only the wines of the Old World (no wine from the USA, Australia, South Africa or Argentina! ) Is not really made a serious protocol and findings are anything but reliable.
Conclusion 2: the press Anglo-Saxons have gained nothing to disseminate information so unreliable as to news organizations and blogs French have not shined by prudence (a study that stigmatizes only wines of Former world it does not seem curious, ladies and gentlemen journalists?).
Conclusion 3: It is time to admit a so-called scientific study can miss quite serious even be biased, it would be wise to adopt a schedule ranking of studies, the group The 4 truths about wine Offers one for anything that may have a relationship with human health publication in a journal with IF of at least 5 000 and contained in the 1st decile of its specialty, however, be very demanding when it comes to health human.
Conclusion 4: Health is the theme taken up by all groups of French food (especially dairy groups), except by those who watch over the success of the wine industry of course. Its a pity for viticulture which has is a communication medium of very high quality.
Conclusion 5: we would have been well advised to consult specialists aspects of wine and health (Curtis Ellison, Serge Renaud, Dominique Lanzmann and Joel of Leiris) instead of letting the rumor swell on French wines, if you want to have an idea it: search Google or Yahoo with the following keywords: French wines + heavy metals. The noise around this study is really damaging for French wine.
...aren't manganese and copper both necessary nutrients? I am very confused by this...Is this some non-dietary variant of these minerals? The analyses I've seen of red wines showed that on average they contain ~10% of a person's daily value of manganese, and much less of copper.
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