Wine, Boron, and a Healthy Prostate
An interesting title, no? Perhaps I've got your attention. I just stumbled across this article that details a connection between boron, a naturally occurring element in many substances, including wine, that can lead to a healthier prostrate.
Sound good?
Here's the article. I hope you enjoy reading about the health benefits of wine as much as I do!
Wine
& Health - The Boron Prescription
By Dr. Harvey Finkel
Boron? Is it a renegade planet in a sci-fi film? A person of low intelligence
who deprives you of solitude without providing company? A command barked out to
an oil-drilling team?
Not.
It is element number 5 in the periodic table, mostly mined in California, and
of considerable industrial importance. It's a component of the cleaning agent
20 Mule Team Borax (and its stablemate, Boraxo), the sponsor during the radio
days of "Death Valley Days," well before Ronald Reagan hosted the
television version. My mother treated my childhood eye irritations with a weak
solution of boric acid.
In contrast to this demonstration of gentleness, the toxicity of boric acid may
be illustrated by the powdered form's storied lethality to cockroaches when
sprinkled about - a cucarachacide.
Well, what's wine to boron or boron to wine, or to health?
It is boron's still incompletely defined role in human health that recently
drew my attention.
A glass of wine contains about 0.5 mg of boron. A maximum dose of about 2 to 3
mg daily is advised by some to avoid the risk of toxicity. (Charlene Rainey, of
Food Research, Inc., of Costa Mesa, California, says that some healthful diets
contain 9 to 13 mg of boron per day, and that the safe upper limit is 20 mg
daily.) A serving of grapes and other non-citrus fruit and a handful of peanuts
each also contain about 0.5 mg.
It seems to me that wine offers the most attractive form. Common sense rules.
Boron is one of those trace minerals that gets little of the respect and
attention paid to the better-known major nutrients. (We should wonder what
other trace elements or compounds may turn out to be major health factors.) I'd
wager that few people, physicians included, even consider boron a factor in
health, nor deficiency a concern, but a nutritional study of six nations
conducted by Rainey revealed that American adults, consuming on average just
over one milligram daily, stood last on the list: 7 to 10 percent less than the
British and Egyptians; 32 to 41 percent less than Germans, Kenyans and
Mexicans.
It is likely that Americans' boron intake is so low because we eat so few
fruits and nuts and drink so little wine. Even so, what harm might be done?
Zuo-Fen Zhang and associates at the UCLA School of Public Health may have found
out. Using the huge data bank of National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey (NHANES), which tracks thousands of men and women, Zhang's group sought
correlations between the amount of dietary boron and its beneficial or adverse
health effects. They uncovered only one, but it appears dramatic. Boron
protected against prostate cancer, a cancer that lies near the top of the list
of deadly afflictions of older men.
According to the American Cancer Society, at 198,100 cases per year, prostate
cancer is the most common of newly diagnosed cancers in the U.S. In causing
31,500 deaths annually, prostate cancer is exceeded in this country only by
lung, colorectal, and breast cancers.
Among the 7,727 older men in the survey, the risk of prostate cancer fell as
boron intake climbed. As reported at the Experimental Biology 2001 conference
held in Orlando, Florida, in early April, the trend was strong: "Prostate
cancer risk for men eating the most boron, at least 1.8 mg/day was less than a
third that of men eating under 0.9 mg/day" (emphasis mine). Ample boron
consumption does not protect against other cancers, nor other chronic diseases,
in this study.
Zhang called the association "very specific to prostate cancer." This
is the kind of exciting discovery that will stimulate plenty of further
research.
It's odd how often something rare or obscure pops up in multiples. At the same
conference, Curtis Hunt and Joseph Idso of Grand Forks, North Dakota, working
at the Human Nutrition Research Center of the Agriculture Department, reported
immune benefits in rats fed boron, estimated to be about equivalent to 2 mg
daily in a human diet.
We all know that immune inflammatory reactions are essential to controlling
infection. Sometimes, and mysteriously, these reactions become perverted and
uncontrolled, attacking one's own tissues, a mortal sin. Such autoimmunity is
operative in a number of nasty diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and
systemic lupus erythematosus. The North Dakota aggies' research showed
boron-deficient rats to be more susceptible to autoimmune disorders. Boron is
protective, apparently by preventing inappropriate activation of cells
(T-suppressor and T-helper) important in autoimmune chain reactions.
The group is studying the effect of supplemental boron on the pain of
rheumatoid arthritis in humans.
I must warn against taking pure boron supplements. They may lead to toxicity,
which is much less likely from natural sources. But boron poisoning is rare -
its compounds are found in soaps, detergents, fertilizers, wood preservatives,
fungicides, high-energy fuels and in the form of boric acid. Ingestions,
absorption from local skin application and inhalation must provide intense exposure
to cause dangerous toxicity in most circumstances. Accidental or suicidal
ingestion may be difficult to prevent. Among the effects of excessive boron are
gastrointestinal disturbances, anemia, convulsions and other brain dysfunction,
skin and hair loss, blindness, metabolic imbalance (acidosis), lung impairment
and cardiac arrest.
Both the deficiency and excess of boron are injurious to the health and
productivity of vines. Either may be caused by injudicious viticultural
practices. Deficiency may occur in sandy or highly acidic soils, especially
when irrigated freely with water deficient in boron. Water varies in boron
content, some places high, some low, some just right.
As the problem progresses, vine leaves are blotched with yellow, shoots swell
and fruit set is impaired, leading to berry shatter and fruit drop.
Because the range between deficiency and excess is narrow, as appears to be the
case in humans, boron toxicity may be brought about by uneven application of
borax to prevent or counteract boron deficiency. Toxicity is first manifested
by dark speckling of vine leaves. As severity increases, these become
confluent, and leaves wrinkle, pucker and wither.
Bear in mind, then, the payoff in antioxidants and boron of consuming ample
fruits, nuts and a moderate quantity of wine. ¶
Contributing Editor Dr. Harvey E. Finkel is a clinical professor of medicine
at Boston University Medical Center and chairman of the Committee on Health of
the Society of Wine Educators.
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