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The "French paradox" refers to the puzzling fact that deaths from coronary heart disease in France are far lower than those in North America, Northern Europe and other Western nations, despite many heart-damaging risk factors such as French diets rich in fat, high blood cholesterol, widespread hypertension (high blood pressure) and more cigarette smoking than in the U.S., Canada or Britain. France, one of the world's highest per capita alcohol consumers, also has one of the world's lowest coronary death rates, second only to Japan among developed nations. Death rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) for men and women in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands are twice those in France, and those in the U.K., U.S. and Denmark are three times higher. However, although heart attack rates are low in France, there is an excess of road injuries, violent deaths and liver cirrhosis, compared to other countries.
Finding reasons for the "French Paradox"
In examining the French paradox, scientists asked two key questions:
Why do the French have such low heart attack rates despite many coronary risk factors?
Is it wine - and in particular red wine - that protects the heart?
Among several explanations put forward, scientists initially attributed the curiously low French heart attack rates to their high daily wine consumption (mostly red wine). Another suggested reason was mis- or under-reporting of heart attacks as a "cause of death" in France. But examination of hospital records did not support this idea. "Another explanation." notes one University of Toronto pharmacologist and expert at the Addiction Research Foundation (ARF), "was the high antioxidant content of French diets, ample in fruit and vegetables." But the favorite explanation was that the consumption of wine, in particular red wine, protects French hearts - an idea heavily promoted by the media, leading to an increase in red wine consumption among some segments of North American society.
Experts argued that certain constituents in red grapes and red wine are "cardioprotective" (for example, antioxidants such as flavonoids), and might inhibit harmful oxidation and reduce clot formation by decreasing the aggregation of platelets (small blood particles that aid clotting). Certain phenolic compounds in red wine are known to combat the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) in blood, thereby reducing damage to...