The Truth about Sulfites and Headaches:

Another Wine Myth Bites the Dust

I don’t know the author.  It came in an email but sounds interesting.  Especially the last line….JWH

It’s like hearing you say the aliens are reading your mind with laser beams (everyone knows they use microwaves, silly). What you’re getting is called RWH. Really. It has a medical name—“Red Wine Headache”—and it’s a “syndrome,” too. RWH was first sited in 1981 by Dr. Herbert Kaufman, MD, in the British medical journal Lancet.

But back to the sulfites. Fresh fruit and vegetables, bacon, salad bars, bottled juices, prescription drugs, nut and snack mixes, pizza, soft drinks, frozen orange juice, raisins, dried pasta, sausage, dried fruit, eggs, bread and beer all contain sulfites—loads of them.  Do you get a headache from everything in this list? Didn’t think so. It’s not sulfites.

Here’s why you sound like such an uninformed whiner when you talk about your headache and sulfites: According to the FDA, there are 500,000 people living in the US who, if they ingested a glass of that tasty little red wine that gave you a twinge, would die. These people have a sulfite allergy. You do not, so you get to shut up. The people who are affected are steroid-dependent asthmatics. Does this describe you? If so—do not drink wine. (Note to steroid-dependent asthmatics: bet you already knew this, and are therefore not even reading my wine column).

Scientists, wine chemists, professors, researchers, everyday people, nutritionists, government agencies, doctors and natural health practitioners all agree that RWH’s are a real (in fact, common) occurrence, but sulfites are not to blame.  Unfortunately, the government requires that wine with an infinitesimal amount of sulfites carry a warning label. (We’re talking 10 parts per million—a small wine pour in a swimming pool.) This has led to widespread consumer misunderstanding—and lots of unjustified whining.

Here’s the deal: ALL wines contain sulfites, because sulfites are a natural by-product of the fermentation of yeast. It’s just that some wines have less than 10 parts per million, and can be officially labeled “no sulfites,” even though that’s not strictly 100% true. Hmm… don’t you think that saying a wine has no sulfites when it actually does contain them might be more dangerous to potential allergics than not having a warning at all? But I digress.

And another thing: most white wines have way more sulfites than red wines. They are needed to help preserve the whites, because the additional sugar in white wine could re-ferment in the bottle. Reds have more tannins, which are a natural preservative. Oddly enough, I know you anti-sulfite types seem to stick with the whites without a problem. So—de facto, no sulfite problems! I’ve caught you now, in flagrante delicto.

So what’s behind your headache? Tannins. This bitter tasting component of grape skins and seeds, as well as oak barrels, is best understood as a primary cause of RWH’s. Tannin headaches would generally occur in people susceptible to migraines, and who also have problems with soy, tea and walnuts—all of which have loads of tannins. Dr. Kaufman put his finger on it way back it ’81. His research proposed that the headaches were tied to prostaglandin, a hormone-like substance produced by the body which regulates, among other things, the constriction and dilation of blood vessels, and blood pressure. It appeared to the doctor and his team that tannins caused the body to create high levels of prostaglandin in headache sufferers.

Similarly, the Harvard Health Letter described the role of tannins and bodily-produced chemicals in studies where subjects displayed elevated levels of serotonin in their blood after drinking red wine. Serotonin can trigger migraines because of its ability to constrict blood vessels. More recent research has indicated that this tannin-headache connection may occur even in folks who are not pre-disposed to migraines.

Later studies (Kaufman, et al, 1991) have shown that aspirin and ibuprofen, or a combination, taken in advance of red wine drinking can be effective in preventing the headaches because of their abilities to inhibit the synthesis of both serotonin and prostaglandin. Acetaminophen was not as effective.

 What about those European wines that “don’t have sulfites” you ask? Those didn’t give you headaches, you say, when all of your life American wines did. We have already covered the fact that “sulfite-free” wine is a marketing ruse. But there may yet be some science behind your headache-free passion for European wines. You see, old world wines may have a lot less tannin than their new world counterparts. This is because so much new world wine is so damned over-extracted (just like we like it!). Many new world producers leave the grapes on the vine until they are so tannin-ripe that they need to have alcohol removed before bottling. They are full of ripe flavor and dark as the dickens, but they’re also loaded with tannins, and therefore play havoc on the headache-sensitive.

Many of you have reported that “the cheap stuff” seems to really trigger RWHs. Allow me to suggest that this may be the result of “tea-bagging” (see my last column), or adding highly tannic oak compounds directly to finished wine in a tank. This is illegal in most of Europe, mainly because it makes decent winemaking too darned easy and inexpensive. Hey, you draw your own conclusions.

Here are my suggestions for how to avoid RWH:

Take a combination of one aspirin and one ibuprofen before imbibing. If you have to choose, take the aspirin, unless you have stomach issues. If you’re a bigger person, or the dose is not working, try increasing in half-pill increments.

Avoid unnaturally-made wines. This doesn’t mean you have to break the bank. Usually smaller producers using natural growing and winemaking techniques will also be reasonably priced. It’s not simply “avoid cheap wine,” as some say.

Drink wines with less tannin or NO tannin. Pinot noir is a great example, although many producers try to beef theirs up artificially with other grapes like Syrah, and using unnatural or heavy-duty techniques. Stick with lighter-colored wines, as a rule of thumb. And remember, white wine with no oak = no problems.
 
If the above doesn’t work, stick with Tequila.