Inhibition of ALDH2 by quercetin glucuronide to explain red wine headaches

I can drink white wine for days but a few sips of certain red wines can cause splitting headaches. They even address onions in the paper.

I don't know about that, but shiraz never gives me headaches.

Hey now, there are great wines aged in stainless. And even more aged in concrete. And yet more aged in neutral oak, which has been used so many times it no longer imparts the oak character. If the quercetin -> oak link holds, I would expect it to also appear in lower levels from neutral barrels.

Would be super interesting to know.

There is a growing trend for amphora/qvevri/ceramic aged wines. Would be interesting to compare. Also wines at least partially aged in concrete tanks.

Many cheap wines are in fact oaked to hell, usually in the form of chips, extracts, etc. because the oak flavour can mask faults or give character to mediocre wines. I use oak shavings in my wine (from grapes from my vineyard) because barrels are a pain to work with.

(People also don't realize how much of the wine sold in stores at even medium price tiers is flavoured and homogenized with the addition of concentrates and other additions. One of the big ones is "MegaPurple(tm)", a colouring and flavouring agent made from Rubired grapes, that is responsible for a lot of the jammy fruity "new world" flavours that people seem to think is representative of "Aussie Shiraz" or "Ripe Zinfandel" or whatever their preference is. It's really just a concentrated grape extract. And extremely popular, and doesn't need to be labelled on the wine because it's made from grapes. It's one way producers can get consistent product year over year.)

https://vinepair.com/articles/what-is-mega-purple-and-what-i...

A lot of wine is moving to all stainless for tons of practical purposes such as cleaning and sanitizing, only dealing with 1 tank, barrel loss, storage space, etc. They then add sawdust for the wood flavor desired (obviously not your average wood shop leftovers). This has way more surface area as compared to a barrel, leading to a way shorter aging time. Then just hit it with some of the normal clarifiers and filter out the little bit left with the plate filter. Both higher end and lower end wineries do this.

Quercetin is present in grapes. Wikipedia says it's "the main flavonol" in both red and white wine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine ).

It is or at least was pretty common to hear about flavonols, flavonoids and specifically quercetin in various foods and their purpoted health benefits. Seems we've moved on to other compounds that are not yet known to be ineffective.

For me both red and white wine are OK, but a glass of Japanese sake and the next day I want to kill myself to end the suffering. Which is a pity, because I like the flavor, but it gives me the worst hangovers ever.

All wines contain sulfites. Yeasts produce them naturally during fermentation.

Almost all winemakers add additional sulfites during crush, pressing, and bottling. There are "natural" wine makers who don't, but their wines still contain sulfites produced by the yeast during fermentation, though it's a much lower amount. And their wines usually end up faulty in some detectable way.

What varies is labeling requirements for sulfite additions. California requires it, so it kind of spread because of that. But if the intended market for the wine doesn't require mentioning it, wine producers may not bother putting it on the label.

I’ve long had this issue, seemingly with red wine, and hoppy beers. An IPA headache is no joke. I also have a crazy sweettooth..candy, ice cream, cookies, etc. Ate way too much. On a whim several months ago I cut sweets from my diet entirely. I swear my headaches have completely left. Like somehow it was the sugar crashes that amplified some reaction to these alcohols (that have no sugars). Who knows. But my head is better now without all the added sugars.

This joke made me curious about the actual funding for this research, shown here: https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/29940

Funny you should say that, as another user on here has the opposite problem:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38357133

They didn't find whether it was actually the source of the headaches, but only proposed a new hypothesis. The linked paper is a review, which proposes a novel hypothesis on red wine's mechanism of causing headache, and suggests that an experiment should take place to test the hypothesis. Many papers have previously suggested alternative ideas on why red wine causes headaches. Other hypothesises that I'm aware of is that the headaches are likely caused by histamine or tannins in red wine.

> Drink red wine and get a headache because of drinking it? Switch to white wine

Pro-tip: sparkling white wine from the french region of Champagne. There's never headaches with this, even if you seriously abuse.

White wines have just as much or more sulfite than red. The sulfites are there to prevent oxidation, and minor oxidation in a white is a far more obvious fault -- visually, and on the nose -- than in a red. People nowadays expect their whites to be crisp and fruity and without a hint of oxidation.

Especially lots of sulfites in off-dry whites, which require a lot more intervention to stop them from fermenting to dry (sterile filtration, extra sulfite, and sometimes potassium sorbate [which I can personally taste at even extremely low concentrations and instantly classifies the wine as 'cheap' to me])

Finally, should mention that while sulfites are added, they also occur naturally as a byproduct of fermentation. Yeasts produce them. Another way (along with alcohol production) they they seem to want to commit suicide :-)

One thing that is (mostly) unique in reds is malolactic fermentation / malolactic bacteria. I've always wondered if the red-wine-headache people might in fact be sensitive to byproducts from that.

Seems they're explaining why things work, such as this:

"In fact, drugs such as disulfiram which inhibit aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), and cause acetaldehyde accumulation if alcohol is consumed, are used as a treatment for alcoholism by causing discomfort noted above, including headache8 to discourage consumption."

Adverse reactions to alcohol like asian flush are actually an evolutionary defense mechanism against alcohollism.