A "CHEAT" OF JEREZ A DAY

"If penicillin cures the sick, Jerez resuscitates the dead", wrote the mythical Nobel Prize winner Alexander Fleming, inventor of penicillin, in a boot of a Jerez winery. Similarly, the Spanish proverb is full of phrases that allude to the proven health effects of the consumption of Sherry wines, something firmly anchored in popular wisdom. Not in vain the Sherry was already valued in the Europe of the Modern Age for its therapeutic and antiseptic properties, coming to be used even in the fight against the devastating plague.

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Seville, published in the prestigious journal 'Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture', has shown that the moderate intake of Sherry wines significantly reduces cholesterol levels total in the blood. Specifically, decreases in total cholesterol have been observed between 24 and 30%. This decrease is mainly due to the decrease of the known bad cholesterol or low density (LDL), while a proportional increase in the level of good cholesterol or high density (HDL) is observed.

The study, coordinated by doctors Félix López Elorza and Juan Miguel Guerrero Montávez, concludes that, given that all the types of wines used in the experiment come from the same grape, the so-called Palomino, "it is likely that certain components present in this grape are responsible for changes in cholesterol levels. " In this sense, Felix Elorza believes that "the fact that apparently so different wines have the same biological effects" suggests that these properties "are the responsibility of the set of nutrients of the earth and the Palomino grape variety, which is the most widespread in the frame". The research concludes by noting that Sherry and Chamomile wines "should be included in the list of wines with healthy physiological effects, following a moderate consumption".