wine and headache
May 10th 2011 -
While red wine is rigorously proven to have many health benefits for regular drinkers, there are those that might feel red wine hurts them more than it helps them. Called the Red Wine Headache ( RWH ) there are some red wine drinkers who frequently feel throbbing headaches or revulsion, and get a flushed feeling when they drink it.
Cause
Science has discovered that the histamines, tannins, and sulfites that are found in Fine wine have been associated with being a cause for these headaches. The following is a brief explanation of how these 3 ingredients in red wine could be tied to red wine headaches.
Histamines are the reason allergic people get watery eyes, sneezing, runny noses, and feel flushed. For this reason it’s been to blame for some of the headaches that people feel when they consume wine. Nevertheless there are other scientists who feel that the level of histamine in a bottle of wine is too low to cause some of the symptoms of red wine headaches.
Sulfites are utilized in the fermentation process of wine and they’ve been the topic of debate since the FDA needed foods that contain sulfites to have a caution label on them. For this reason many link sulfites to being the cause of red wine headaches in sufferers. However , other foods that have higher concentrations of sulfites haven’t been known to give folk headaches.
Scientifically, tannins have a link to heightened quantities of serotonin in the brain. Some feel this should be the main reason why a few individuals experience headaches from red wine, sometimes even migraines. However there aren’t any proved systematic studies to back up the validity of these claims.