Fearing the dreaded red wine headache? Here’s how to prevent it

The current leading theory among scientists points to a group of chemicals known as polyphenols, which includes the tannins and antioxidants that are present in red wines. Researchers have struggled to determine which specific compounds might be the culprit or exactly how they cause headaches. What’s more, other foods – such as tea, chocolate, onions and berries – also contain high levels of these chemicals but don’t have a strong link to headaches.

The new study suggests red wine headaches might be caused by a combination of alcohol and a certain polyphenol, an antioxidant called quercetin.

To arrive at their hypothesis, researchers looked to another known cause of alcohol-induced headaches: a genetic variant that is common in people of East Asian descent and that leads to headaches, flushing and nausea if they drink alcohol. The variant interferes with how the body processes alcohol, leading to a buildup of a harmful compound called acetaldehyde.

“In small amounts, we can handle” acetaldehyde without feeling sick, says Lara Ray, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specialises in alcohol use disorders and was not involved in the study. But when alcohol isn’t metabolised properly, “the body then shows this aversive response”.

The researchers set out to find a compound in red wine that might impede this process. In lab tests, they found that was the case with quercetin, an antioxidant produced by grapes when they’re exposed to sunlight. “We refer to this as sunscreen for grapes,” says Andrew Waterhouse, a professor emeritus of oenology (wine chemistry) at the University of California, Davis, and an author of the study.

The idea that quercetin causes wine headaches is still just a theory, but “it’s a compelling argument,” Ray says.

However, Vasilis Vasiliou, chair of the department of environmental health sciences at Yale University and a specialist in alcohol metabolism, cautioned that what happens in a petri dish doesn’t always translate to what happens in the human body. He adds that other research had suggested that quercetin could actually help protect against damage caused by alcohol.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers will need to compare people’s responses to wines that are high and low in quercetin.

Preparing before you pour

If you’re prone to red wine headaches, you could try taking an over-the-counter painkiller before you have a glass; one small study suggested that doing so prevented them. But be careful about using paracetamol or ibuprofen if you’re drinking more than a glass or two – taking them with alcohol can raise the risk of liver damage and gastrointestinal bleeding.

The simplest solution might be to switch wines. Both green and red grapes contain quercetin, but for white and rosé wines, the skins are removed immediately after the fruit is crushed. The skins are left in while red and orange wines ferment, so more quercetin leaches into the wine. There is some research into which red wines have lower quercetin levels, but there are no definitive answers yet.

For Levin, a co-author of the new study, the pursuit has become somewhat personal – he recently developed the unpleasant reaction to red wine and now seeks out varietals that he hopes won’t affect him. “I think I know which wines might be the more tolerable ones, but I’m not quite sure yet,” he says. “So it’s another experiment.”

The New York Times

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