A small number of people suffer adverse reactions after drinking red wine. These reactions can include headaches, flushed skin or impaired breathing. A number of factors can cause these reactions, including intolerance to alcohol or to ingredients specific to red wine. Alcohol consumption can also exacerbate other types of food intolerance.
Alcohol Intolerance
Most negative reactions to red wine are not the product of allergies, but of intolerances. A food intolerance occurs when an individual lacks an enzyme needed to digest a particular substance. Intolerance to alcohol is caused by the absence of an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase. Intolerance symptoms include flushing of the skin, increased heart rate, a feeling of heat or congestion of the nasal passages. This enzyme deficiency is most common in people of Asian descent.
Other Intolerances
Other reactions to drinking red wine are caused not by alcohol intolerance, but by an intolerance to other ingredients present on grapes or produced by the wine-making process. These substances include sulfites, which are used as preservatives on grapes, as well as tannins, chemicals that give red wine its characteristic tang. Red wine also contains high levels of histamines compared to other types of alcoholic beverage; these chemicals can cause reactions including itching and diarrhea.
Alcoholic Interaction with Other Intolerances
Another possible cause for negative reactions after drinking red wine is the way in which alcohol interacts with other food intolerances. Consuming alcohol increases the rate at which food is absorbed through the gut into the bloodstream. As a result, drinking alcohol may increase the effect of other food intolerances, even if you do not suffer significant ill effects from them. As with alcohol intolerance, this problem does not affect drinkers of red wine more than drinkers of other alcoholic drinks.
Red Wine Headache
Unlike alcohol intolerance, there may be forms of adverse reaction associated specifically with drinking red wine. The most common of these is the so-called "red wine headache," which some drinkers report after drinking as little as half a glass of red wine. This effect may be the result of one or more intolerances discussed above. Sulfites have been suggested as a cause, although this fails to explain why red wine in particular would be to blame, when white wine also contains high levels of sulfites.
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