Get wine benefits from your wine - AND - Natural hope for MS patients

One of the best things about enjoying the health benefits of red wine is the wine itself.

Being healthy has never tasted so good!

So naturally, some researchers are trying to spoil the party -- because a new study looks at the benefits of the polyphenols in red wine... when taken without the actual wine.

I'm happy to report that the experiment was a failure.

Researchers gave 61 men and women with an average age of 61 one of three drinks for four weeks: A dairy beverage with a high dose of the polyphenols found in red wine... a dairy beverage with a lower dose of those same polyphenols... and a dairy beverage with no polyphenols.

After four weeks, there was no change in blood pressure levels. The patients were all hypertensive before... and remained so afterwards with average readings of 145/86.

But even the researchers must've expected that.

"Previous human studies showed no effect of red wine drinking on blood pressure," researcher Ilse Botden, MD, a PhD student at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam told WebMD.

The researchers concluded that whatever the heart benefits of red wine might be, they don't come from lowering blood pressure. Like I said, that's no surprise -- the real surprise is that they reached any conclusion at all about red wine... since no one in the study actually drank any.

The researchers were on the right track in one regard, however: Red wine isn't actually the best source of some of its famous antioxidants. A single resveratrol supplement, for example, can contain as much of the polyphenol as an entire case of wine.

But take it WITH your wine, not instead of it -- because studies have shown that booze itself holds some terrific benefits, no matter what kind of alcoholic beverage you drink. In fact, a moderate drinking habit can help your heart, lower your risk of stroke and may even extend your life... even if it won't lower your BP.

And of course, booze is also great for the brain: One recent study found that moderate drinkers are 30 percent less likely to develop dementia and 40 percent less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease than non-drinkers.

If you can get all that from drinking, why get it any other way?

On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls
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The mainstream "solutions" to multiple sclerosis can be even worse than the disease itself: Of all the dangerous meds MS patients are told to take, not a single one of them can stop or reverse the damage.

And they all come with some horrific side effects.

One recently approved drug that does little more than boost walking speed -- and only in about a third of MS patients -- is actually a bird poison, for crying out loud.

Now, there's finally some real promise on the horizon -- and no... it's not a drug. It's a natural supplement that's very similar to the glucosamine safely taken by millions of arthritis patients every single day.

It's called N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), and researchers say it can help correct the problems that cause the immune system to start attacking itself in MS patients.

The secret is in the sugars: Cellular proteins react to sugar molecules, and recent studies have shown that those sugars could be triggering the message that causes immune system T-cells to go haywire.

Glucosamine, as the name suggests, is also a form of sugar -- and researchers say the N-acetylglucosamine form is powerful enough to change that message and replace it with a new one: Stop it. Now.

That's the theory. To test it, the researchers bred mice with an MS-like condition that was causing leg weakness to the point where the rodents should have eventually suffered from paralysis.

When they were given N-acetylglucosamine, however, the march to paralysis wasn't just stopped... it was reversed.

The researchers say human trials are needed to figure out if it really can deliver on the elusive promise of an MS cure or even relief, as well as key issues like the most effective dose.

But if you don't want to wait, I can certainly understand -- and you don't have to, either: N-acetylglucosamine is inexpensive and already widely available. Just be sure to work with an experienced naturopathic physician who can help monitor your progress.

The benefits may not end with MS. In fact, N-acetylglucosamine could open the doorway to new treatments for a host of autoimmune disorders.

In one study, for example, eight of 12 kids suffering from inflammatory bowel disease saw significant improvements -- and no serious side effects -- after two years of N-acetylglucosamine supplements.

These were kids who had a treatment-resistant version of the disease -- so once again, a simple natural supplement managed to pull off what a pharmacy full of meds could not.

On a mission for your health,
Ed Martin
Editor, House Calls