ON Nov. 17, CBS News devoted a segment of its weekly program “60 Minutes” to what it called the French Paradox: the fact that the incidence of coronary heart disease in France is 40 percent lower than it is in the United States. This, despite a French diet high in fat and cholesterol. American and French researchers interviewed by “60 Minutes” pointed to an apparent relationship between moderate alcohol consumption, particularly red wine, and a lower rate of heart disease.
The French, the researchers said, not only consume high-fat diets, they also smoke more and exercise less than Americans.
No one could have been happier about the “60 Minutes”‘ report than the French themselves, or at least the French Government. On Dec. 18, Food and Wines From France, the Government agency that promotes French food and wine overseas, took a full-page advertisement in a number of newspapers, including this one, that seems to have taken some liberties with the facts. It read in part:
“According to a recent news report on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ entitled ‘The French Paradox,’ the intake of fat in the French diet seems to be counteracted by their drinking of French red wine. Yes, French red wine. The intake of wine per capita in France is higher than anywhere else in the world. In comparison, the United States per capita intake is among the lowest.”
“Scientists at France’s Inserm (the French equivalent of America’s National Institutes of Health) have found that wine, particularly French red wine, has a flushing effect on the heart’s artery walls,” the advertisement proclaims, explaining that excess platelets, which cause blood to clot, “blocking arteries and causing heart attacks,” are dissipated by the wine. “Moderate consumption of French red wine — one to three glasses per day with your meals — flushes away these platelets, clearing the arteries!” the advertisement asserts.
In the “60 Minutes” segment, Dr. Serge Reneaux, an epidemiologist and the director of Inserm, tells Morley Safer, the CBS correspondent, “It’s well documented that, really, an intake, a moderate intake of alcohol, prevents coronary disease by as much as 50 percent.”
At no time during the program does anyone specify that the alcohol should be French red wine. Still, the French advertisement clearly states that French wine and only French wine is the beneficial agent.
For two decades there have been dozens of studies indicating that moderate alcohol consumption can lessen the risk of heart disease. Most of these studies have confined themselves to the generic term alcohol; some have specified wine and at least one, quoted in The Journal of Applied Cardiology (Volume 5, 1990), suggested that red wine was preferable to white. “It may be the specific action of red wine tannins which may have protective activity on the cardiovascular system,” the report said.
But none — not even the French studies — have ever made such claims exclusively for French wine. The New York offices of Food and Wines From France were closed yesterday for the Christmas holiday, and no one was available for comment.
The CBS report was based on an article, “Le Paradoxe Francais,” which appeared in the May-June edition of In Health, an American magazine. The article, by Edward Dolnick, spells out essentially the same conclusions as “60 Minutes.” Both note too that the French benefit from better eating habits: three meals, the biggest being lunch, and no snacks. Both laud food in France: fresh produce, meals reverentially prepared and lovingly consumed. Both condemn American food as mostly fast and frozen.
In other words, both rely on cliches about France and about this country. In fact, we eat better here and, as anyone who has watched the proliferation of fast food places in France can attest, they eat worse. Not a week goes by in France without another batch of articles about the deterioration of French eating habits.
Moreover, wine may well play a part in the incidence of heart disease, but it doesn’t help to match its supposed powers against a style of eating that has been declining in France for 20 years. While heart disease kills more people in the United States — 41 percent of all deaths, versus 30 percent in France — it is still France’s principal cause of death.
What neither the television show nor the article mentioned was a survey taken last year disclosing that more than half of all French adults never drink any wine at all. The survey, compiled by France’s National Interprofessional Office of Wine, an industry group, indicated that only 28 percent of Frenchmen and 11 percent of Frenchwomen who drink wine drink it every day. Which, given France’s overall consumption, suggests that those people who do drink wine regularly drink a great deal of it, far more than the two or three glasses favored by the researchers.
Could this have something to do with the fact that France’s rate of alcoholism and its proportion of deaths from cirrhosis and other liver ailments are double those of the United States? And what about the rate of heart disease among those nondrinkers and occasional drinkers who make up the majority of the French population? What flushes the excess platelets out of their arteries?
Wine drinking has been in decline in France and all over Europe since the end of World War II. In 1930, per-capita wine consumption in France was about 130 liters, or almost 35 gallons, a year. By 1950 that had dropped to 109 liters and by 1986, according to European Community figures, to about 78 liters. Was there even less heart disease when people drank more?
That the moderate consumption of alcohol can contribute to a healthier life has long been asserted by medical researchers. Hospitals in Europe have given many older patients a small ration of wine with meals for many years. And anyone who drinks wine regularly — and moderately — knows that it contributes something to life.
But there is a danger in thinking of wine drinking as a sort of panacea for overindulgence, as a free ticket to longevity. These reports are encouraging, even exciting. But in their popular form they appear to be leavened with gastronomic cliches and wishful thinking. We need more research. As they say, better numbers.
Meanwhile, why not enjoy a glass of wine? For its own sake. TASTINGS
Domaine Willm Gewurztraminer Clos Gaensbroennel 1988; about $20.
In Alsace, a French wine region dominated by small holdings, Clos Gaensbroennel stands out as one of the truly exceptional vineyards. A small portion of its approximately 17 acres near Barr is owned by the Domaine Hering, but most is owned by the Domaine Willm, one of the oldest names in Alsace. Willm’s Clos Gaensbroennel gewurztraminer is one of the finest examples of what can be done with this very special grape. This is a slow-developing wine, as anyone who has had the sense to hold onto the 1983 and 1985 vintages is now finding out. The 1988 could one day equal the rich, intense 1985, but it will need a few more years to show what it can be. This is not a wine for a newcomer to gewurztraminer; one should have had more than a few lighter-bodied, less-intense versions to appreciate the power and concentration of Willm’s flagship wine, the Clos Gaensbroennel.