Call to Action!: Crowdfunding Requested for New UC Davis Red Wine Headache Research

Wow, it’s been a while…..been taking some time off, but I shall return soon enough. In the meantime, here’s some information for a new research project from well-respected scientists and researchers at UC Davis that I thought I’d pass along to all my readers! Click on the link and read all about the project! –> UC Davis | Uncovering the Source of Red Wine Headaches

Hope to be back sooner than later with all new content here on The Academic Wino!

Here’s the email I received from Dr. Andrew Waterhouse regarding the project:

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What Causes Red Wine Headaches?

For some wine drinkers, red wine triggers mild to serious headaches, but the cause is not known. An internet search will provide a number of speculative ideas: sulfites, histamines, tannins, alcohol, sugar and other wild guesses. Most of these have been ruled out, but red wine contains much more tannin and related compounds, so these will be carefully scrutinized. In general, we will compare a list of wines that cause, and those that do not cause headaches, according to patients who suffer from this affliction, and chemically analyze those wines. We will then compare the inventory of substances in those that trigger headaches and those that do not. We hope that we will be able to identify the culprits from that comparison.

Image taken from the UC Davis crowdfunding project page

The Dream Team is Ready

To tackle this issue, we have combined forces from three leaders: wine chemistry, metabolome analysis and diagnosis of headaches. If anyone has a chance to sort this out, it is this team.

You might ask, why don’t we apply to NIH to study this issue? Good Question. The NIH has never been supportive of headache research, despite the huge amount of suffering migraine and related conditions cause. We think not only will this study help answer a centuries old riddle, but will also shed some much-needed light on the spectrum of headache conditions.

Andrew Waterhouse is a wine chemist and Professor of Enology at UC Davis. He has published over 150 research articles, is the Editor in Chief at the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, and has co-authored the book Understanding Wine Chemistry.

Waterhouse Lab (ucdavis.edu)

Oliver Fiehn is the Director of the Metabolomics Lab at UC Davis and has discovered human metabolites that are linked to various diseases and diets. Because of his success, he is widely sought for projects just like this one. He has published over 200 scientific articles.

Fiehn Lab – Professor Oliver Fiehn, PhD (ucdavis.edu)

Morris Levin is chief of the Division of Headache Medicine and director of the Headache Center at UCSF Medical Center. His research interests include diagnosis in headaches, cervicogenic headache, post-concussive headache, and is an expert in medical education of neurology. He is board-certified in neurology and pain medicine by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Morris Levin | UCSF Health

Want to donate to this project? CLICK THIS LINK!–> UC Davis | Uncovering the Source of Red Wine Headaches