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Grape Juice Study Debunks
Wine’s Health Claims
The National Statesman
In the last year wine sellers and their willing accomplices in the medical and news media fields have tried to sell us on drinking wine as a way to help our hearts.
Those in the Prohibition Party and other temperance groups immediately said that any benefits in wine would come from the grapes, not from ethyl alcohol which is a poison.
Now a new study has appeared in most newspapers which shows that we were right. Note especially that the benefit of grape juice is about 66% greater than that of wine without the harm caused by ethyl alcohol.
As we have noted before there are a number of insurance companies which offer lower rates to abstainers. None offer lower rates to drinkers.
They know the bottom line financially and realize that alcohol users die earlier and have more illnesses than abstainers. The information on this new study follows:
Toasting the day with a glass of grape juice may be an especially good start for the heart.
A study found that 8 or 10 ounces a day of the purple variety has a potent effect on the blood cells called platelets, making them less likely to form clots than can lead to heart attacks.
In fact, purple grape juice might be even more potent than aspirin, which is widely recommended as a way of warding off heart attacks.
The researchers compared grape juice with orange and grapefruit juice and came to the conclusion that grape juice is better, at least for the heart.
The study was led by Dr. John D. Folts of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. His research has been funded for several years by the Nutricia Research Foundation of the Netherlands and the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin and more recently by Welch's, which makes grape juice.
Folts noted that 10 companies make purple grape juice in the United States, and all probably work equally well.
Purple juice appears to be more potent than white, Folts said.
Heart attacks occur when blood clots stick to fatty deposits on the walls of the heart's arteries, choking the supply of blood.
Folts presented his latest findings recently at a conference of the American College of Cardiology. Experimenting on 17 volunteers, himself included, Folts found that both aspirin and red wine slow the activity of blood platelets by about 45 percent, while purple grape juice dampens them by about 75 percent.
"His data are very convincing," said Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky of Kaiser Permanent Medical Center in Oakland, Calif., who studies the benefits of alcohol on the heart.
Editor's Note: We are pleased that the Welch Grape Juice Co. was a sponsor of this study. Welch’s was founded by N. Y. dentist Charles Welch, a Methodist steward, who wanted to provide grape juice for communion. He was also a leader in the Prohibition Party in New York and ran for Governor on our ticket.