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Christi Foist doesn’t drink a lot of wine, but when she does, it’s not pretty.
“I find that if I have one to two glasses of wine, my sinuses will get stuffed up,” says the 32-year-old web editor, who lives in the San Francisco area. “And if I don’t drink enough water, I’ll get the headache. I think it must be the sulfites or something else.”
Turns out, Foist is allergic to wine, along with an estimated 500 million other people -- about 8 percent of the world's population -- who can’t sip vino without suffering symptoms of a bad cold.
Sulfites have long been known to cause sniffles, sneezes, headaches, skin rashes and/or breathing difficulties in about 1 percent of that group, but, until now, the trigger for the other 7 percent has been chalked up only to “something else.”
But thanks to new research out of the University of Southern Denmark, scientists now believe they’ve identified a potential culprit: glycoproteins.
Those are the sugar-coated proteins that develop during the grape fermentation process. They’re also the molecules that trigger allergic reactions to substances like dust mites, ragweed and latex.
“We have hypothesized that there could be a link between protein glycosylation and allergenic response, but more clinical data are necessary to prove it,” says Dr. Giuseppe Palmisano, a molecular biologist at the University of Southern Denmark and lead author of a new study recently published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Proteome Research.
“When we started the experiments, we wanted to identify the glycoproteins present in wine to understand more about oenological problems like haze formation and aroma changes, but the results led us to think about another possible implication of these glycoproteins.”
In a nutshell, Palmisano and his colleagues analyzed a bottle of Italian chardonnay and discovered 28 different glycoproteins. Upon further analysis, they realized that some of the grape glycoproteins were strikingly similar to other known allergens.
What does this mean for people who sneeze and sniffle every time they sip?
Well, Palmisano said researchers are working to map out a complete “molecular picture” of wine components, the better to understand which tiny particles deserve focus.
“If these molecules are proven to be responsible for allergy in wine, then the winemakers will have a target to remove them,” he explained.
In other words, hypoallergenic wine may be coming to a glass near you.
No more stuffy noses. No more skin rashes. No more headaches.
Unless, of course, you drink too much.
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Leave a Comment:
You know, I used to find I got a blinding headache after four, five bottles of wine...
You know, I used to find that I got a blinding headache after four, five bottles of wine...
HOHOHOHOHO!! I love this! Witty people ROCK. m.
LOL!! I agree Sentiment. Too bad when you read the last line of the article, there is no panacea for drinking too much, bummer.
Wow, did not know about all of this. Thank you. Will need to add this to the list of foods, products to test when looking for allergies.
It'd be nice to enjoy a glass of wine now and then without the headache, sniffles and itch. I've got awful wine allergies.
I seem to be OK if I drink white wine, but I get all stuffed up when I drink almost any red wine. It's a minor bummer.
I'm right there with you. Absolutely no problem with white, but after a glass of red, I start to get stuffy and after two, a headache comes about.
So what would cause the slightest amount of alcoholic beverage to make me so nauseated that I wish for a quick death? I can't even drink coke because of the trace amounts of alcohol...a little sprinkle of Cointreau and a crepe is inedible...I have to check ingredients on frozen dinners (no it DOES NOT cook away, whatever is making me sick)...and I wasn't born like this. It came on gradually after a couple of years of normal beer/wine consumption. It isn't an allergy - it's more like toxicity. Anybody else like that?
If I drink any kind of wine my face turns red and I burn up with a fever within minutes. So glad I'm not the only one!
same here glad i dont like wine too much
looks like someone pulled a shade over my face and ears
I developed an allergy to all type of alcohol - itchy hands and feet, facial swelling/overall inflammation, hives, but not sinus involvement. It started about 7 yrs ago, well into adulthood.
Anyone else have this?
No, my reaction to wine is a raging migraine complete with n/v. A glass of wine will put me in bed for two days. It's really too bad because I like it but it definitely doesn't like me. I've had this reaction to it since early adulthood. Occasionally, my parents would give us a half a glass at dinner when we were kids, on a holiday usually and there were no problems with it then. Thank GOD alcohol is not a problem when I do have a drink.
when I was 26 and covered in hives at the dr's office working as a A/R clerk, the dr pulled me aside and suggested I undergo allergy testing...at the conclusion I was mildly allergic to house dust and grapes. Twenty years later having dinner with the same dr at an Italian restaurant, I professedmy desire to one day enjoy wine again and he asked why? I reminded him of the testing results from yrs ago, and he replied that I was probably only allergic to one grape and I should be okay with others...the next day I had five glasses of champagne to celebrate and didn't break out in hives!
Get Tested for Allergies before you assume you have something, and don't self-diagnose your symptoms without checking with a qualified physician, you may be miss-diagnosing yourself, and you may be wrong.
i don't drink wine alot but the few times i do after the first glass you can see my face turn red firey hot only when i drink wine very very strange
Wine today contains an enormous amount of sodium metabisulfite. It may not be the wine that is causing the allergy.
You know, I wondered why sulfites weren't mentioned in the article. Thanks for bringing them up!
Define enormous...By law any wine sold in the US cannot exceed 350 ppm with European wines having even lower legal limits, which are more likely to be enforced due to winemaking laws in Europe. Don't froget to mention that you will also find it in Orange Juice concentrate, at your local salad bar and in nearly all dried fruit that isn't brown. Most people don't react to the sulphur. It is most likley to affect folks with respiratory issues like asthma.
I developed an allergy, particularly to red wine, well into my thirties. I also happen to be allergic to the Sulfa anitbiotic. With red wine, my face turns beet red and feels like it is on fire. With the Sulfa antibiotic, I got hives and went into anaphalactic shock. It took 2 epi shots to come out of it. I wonder if the Sulfa drug and the sulfites in wine have any connection?
Not all wine allergies are due to sulfites. Some are due to the yeast in the wine, which is still live and at least partially active; that's why wine goes on to turn to vinegar. I suffer the same symptoms when I drink the stuff, but my specific cause has been identified as yeast allergies. I won't deny that sulfites do affect some people that way, but saying that wine allergies are caused by sulfites, without qualification such as "most" or "some," is hyperbole at best.
If the esteemed researchers are reading these posts, and in case anyone else is interested, I'd be happy to share the research my wife and I have been conducting over the past 21 years...
She's allergic to mallic acid, which is present in raw grapes and raw apples, as well. She gets the same anaphylactic reaction in all cases of the above, as well as in any white wine that is unoaked, or has not gone through at least 80% malolactic fermentation, which converts the malic acid to lactic acid. Needless to say, we really enjoy the older style Chardonnays. Big and buttery, and both can enjoy.
Myself, I'm somewhat sensitive to the sulfites in red wines, and they tend to get me a little more tipsy sooner than a white. One man's allergy; another man's buzz. Good thing the servers at the tasting rooms around here are familiar with us. ( take that, Napa Valley!)
Our solution has been to get the older-style whites, and agree that I won't hit the reds too hard when we're out somewhere I'd need to drive from. Cheers!
Look up a product called Histame. It is an enzyme that deals with these types of reactions. I thought I was having allergy symptoms to a lot of foods, wine and alcohol. Now that I take this within 15 min. before I eat or drink something that I know will bother me, I can eat or drink the substance with no ill effects. This has been a lifesaver for me. It will not do anything for true food allergies such as gluten and dairy which I have. My daughter can drink again also, without the sneezing and congestion. Look it up for more info.
(And no, I don't work for the company. I'm just grateful to be able to eat again.)
Check out the product Histame. It deals with these reactions from wine, alcohol and food. This has been a lifesaver for me.
Your exact same situation happened to me . . . in my case, I learned that I had Type 2 Diabetes and that was the cause.
Your exact same situation happened to me . . . in my case, I learned that I had Type 2 Diabetes and that was the cause.
Don't know if this will help anyone but the non-alcoholic sparkling juices are a good substitute. No one is allergic but I always had it for the grand-kids and others that don't or can't drink. Grand-kids are older now but I still keep it on hand.
Like the other comments, I also suffer from any kind of wine consumption and less so with white wines. I have found that home brewed wines do not trigger my allergic reactions quite as severely and can be tolerable if wine is consumed while eating a meal. I am sure that all commercial wineries need to adjust their additive levels due to legal mumbo jumbo, etc. , which is probably the reason home brewed has less effect on allergic reactions. Although people with severe reactions to any wines should not expect that the home made will be the answer. My advice? Drink no more than 2 glasses of wine during a nice meal and drink plenty of water in between. Take an aspirin with a large glass of water before bed and you'll wake up feeling OK.
I have found that I have less of an allergic reaction/migraine with certain European wines, especially French wine, that I do with Californian wine. (Which is a shame, because there is a lot of really great Californian wine). So, yeah, I am wondering if, in my case, it is a reaction to some additive in American wines. Seems like if it was the yeast, you'd have more people sneezing after eating sandwiches!
Taking an antihistamine before drinking does help, along with drinking lots of water.
Just remember, stick to aspirin for wine reaction headaches -- Tylenol is a no-no. Too hard on your liver.
And that my friends is why you should make your own. :)
The title is beyond misleading. It is false. According to the article itself scientists are studying the phenomenon and do NOT have a solution yet.
Bad journalism is rampant in this country. We need to root out bad journalists and make them something else - unemployed.
Sniffles and sneezes are minor to me but, one small glassful, and the headache is horrendous. The better the wine, the less likely to be "poisonous." CA wine is the worst--full of preservatives, too, perhaps? Heating wine--cooking with it--by the way, seems to destroy the glycoproteins/problems (?), but that's a terrible thing to even contemplate doing to a really good wine! Watch out!--many foods are fermented.
It’s a great and useful post
for every wine lover. Whenever I drunk red wine I used to get headache, I tried
the wine of celebration wine club in CA. I found it is less allergic to me. Now
I can enjoy 2 or 3 glasses but not more than that.