Red wine headaches have puzzled people for thousands of years, and accounts exist that date back to the Roman times. While several constituents of red wine have been implicated as the offenders behind these headaches, sulfites, biogenic amines, and tannins, among others, our study identifies an unlikely culprit.
Sulfites: Not the Culprit
Sulfites have been a convenient scapegoat for headaches for decades, particularly since they were mandated to be listed on wine labels in the U.S. in the 1990s. However, sulfites are not strongly associated with headaches. Other foods contain similar levels of sulfites, but they don’t have the same effect. More important, your body produces sulfites as it breaks down protein, in much larger quantities than a glass of wine contains. The 20 milligrams of sulfites in a typical glass are unlikely to overwhelm your body’s sulfite processing systems.
Another suspect is biogenic amines. These are nitrogenous compounds found in fermented products, such as wine; they are known to bring on headaches. The quantity of these compounds in red wine is so low as to not present much concern.
What are Tannins?
Tannin is a phenolic compound naturally occurring in abundance in the red wine, which commonly gets blamed for causing the headache. Since white wines hold much less tannin, this is probably most likely. Tannins are naturally occurring in plants; they help to prevent disease, and also resist predators, but it is also occurring in some common items that people consume, such as tea and chocolate, where it doesn’t cause any headache. Phenolics in which tannins fall into this category are potent antioxidants and so unlikely to trigger inflammation that might lead to headaches.
Why Red Wine Flushing Could Cause Headaches
Some people’s skins turn red and flush after the consumption of alcohol. Along with this, headache sets in. This happens due to a slower second stage of alcohol metabolism when the acetaldehyde gets converted into acetate. A delay in this conversion makes more acetaldehyde accumulate, thereby producing headaches and hangovers.
It could be the quercetin, a phenolic compound in red wine due to longer fermentation with grape skins, that is causing these headaches. Research has shown that quercetin inhibits ALDH, an enzyme involved in alcohol metabolism. ALDH inhibition slows down the breakdown of acetaldehyde, causing the toxic compound to build up and cause inflammation and headaches.
Our experiments supported that quercetin is indeed an ALDH inhibitor, and its glucuronide derivative, which is actually metabolized by the body, can further interfere with alcohol metabolism, thus worsening the headache symptoms. This research therefore points out the indirect or additive effects of quercetin that are not immediately apparent as most foods containing quercetin do not induce headaches.
To test the hypothesis, for example, a comparison of a red wine with low vs. high quercetin content may be helpful. If it is true, then that high-quercetin wine should induce the headaches more frequently. For specific wines, there is at present not enough information to give anyone concrete advice, but it can be assumed that grapes in full sun produce more of the pigment. Inexpensive red wines, often so-called as they are indeed made from grapes exposed less to the sun, maybe a safer bet.
In conclusion, if you’re looking to avoid red wine headaches, try choosing lighter red wines that are potentially lower in quercetin.
