Drink wine, don’t get sunburned
Reviewed By
Rating
Drink wine, don’t get sunburned
Our Review Summary
If you’ve been following this site long enough, you can do this review yourself. We only need to show you the lead paragraph:
- “Important health tip for the summer: Drink more wine! A better protection against harmful sunburns might be a healthy dose of SPF sauvignon blanc, suggests a new Spanish study.”
How do you think it did?
If you need help, keep reading.
Why This Matters
We know this column is supposed to be cute, oddball stuff.
But often it’s not.
It’s often briefs that make claims about ideas without doing a bit of work to analyze the evidence. This is the kind of daily drumbeat of meaningless health news that turns people numb to the stuff that really matters.
Each piece ends with the tease: “Want more weird health news?” Our answer is “No.”
Criteria
Not Applicable
Costs weren’t mentioned. That’s the least of our issues with this story. We’ll rule it Not Applicable.
Not Satisfactory
We’re not told the degree of protection, the success rate of the experiment – nothing about the scope of perceived “benefit” or success. Yet the story boldly proclaims: “Important health tip for the summer: Drink more wine!”
Not Applicable
Not applicable.
Not Satisfactory
Absolutely no evaluation of the evidence. The story spouts the following line from the scientists:
- “The flavonoids found in grapes work to halt the chemical reaction that kills skin cells and causes sun damage. Here’s what happens: When UV rays hit your skin, they activate “reactive oxygen species,” or ROS, which then oxidize big molecules like lipids and DNA. This activates particular enzymes that kill skin cells.But grapes’ flavonoids work to decrease the formation of the ROS’s in skin cells that were exposed to UVA and UVB rays.”
But was the work done in the test tube? On human cells? On mouse cells? We’re not given a clue.
Not Applicable
Not applicable.
Not Satisfactory
No independent expert on skin protection was interviewed.
Not Satisfactory
There was no comparison with other research about skin protection.
Not Satisfactory
The story playfully mentions SPF Sauvignon Blanc. But it doesn’t answer if the effect is seen from all grapes and all grape derivatives. Of course, since the story links to a news release it appears that no one interviewed the researcher or read the study.
The story states that “this finding may lead to better sun-shielding drugs and cosmetics” without giving any sense of how much research has been done down this path or how far away such a projection might be from any glimmer of reality.
Not Satisfactory
MSNBC’s attempt to tell the broader story about beneficial effects of wine is to link to 3 unrelated stories that have appeared on their site in the past, on wine being found “to fight Alzheimer’s, ward off prostate cancer and even prevent cavities.”
But nothing about whether this grape flavonoid work is novel – or about any other research in the field of skin protection that may be further along than this
Not Satisfactory
The story links to a news release, which we can safely assume was the sole motivation for the story.
Total Score: 0 of 7 Satisfactory
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