/ eh10 5023 Mp 353 Tuesday Jun 24 04:04 PM EL–PB (v. 62, no. 1) 5023 353 Physiology & Behavior, Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 353–357, 1997 Copyright  1997 Elsevier Science Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0031-9384/97 $17.00 / .00 PII S0031-9384( 97 ) 00023-1 Model for Voluntary Wine and Alcohol Consumption in Rats LLUI ´ S AROLA,* ROSER ROIG,* ESTHER CASCO ´ N,* M. JOSE ´ BRUNET, * NU ´ RIA FORNO ´ S,* MODEST SABATE ´ ,² XAVIER RAGA,² JOAN BATISTA,² M. JOSEPA SALVADO ´ * AND CINTA BLADE ´ * 1 *Unitat d’Enologia del CERTA, Departament de Bioquı ´mica i Biotecnologia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Pl. Imperial Tarraco, 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain and ²Hospital de St. Pau i Sta Tecla, 43002 Tarragona, Spain Received 21 October 1996; Accepted 13 February 1997 AROLA, L., R. ROIG, E. CASCO ´ N, M. J. BRUNET, N. FORNO ´ S, M. SABATE ´ , X. RAGA, J. BATISTA, M. J. SALVADO ´ AND C. BLADE ´ . Model for voluntary wine and alcohol consumption in rats. PHYSIOL BEHAV 62 (2) 353–357, 1997.— It has been suggested that moderate consumption of ethanol and wine has a protective effect on human health. Animal models used to date for alcohol consumption can not mimic real situations in humans because the consumption is forced and/or excessive. The present study proposes to determine the effects of a voluntary and ad lib consumption model more similar to that of human behavior. Male Wistar rats had free access to either standard diet and water or the same diet plus red wine, sweet wine, or a solution equivalent to red wine (13.5% ethanol) or to sweet wine (20% ethanol / 130 g/L sucrose) for 30 days or 6 months. Daily wine consumption was 15.8 { 0.9 and 2.0 { 0.2 ml/day for sweet and red wines, respectively. The consumption of each of the alcoholic solutions was similar to that of the wine they were simulating. Drinking wine or ethanol did not affect food and water intakes or growth rate. Plasma metabolites were not substantially affected by consumption of wine or ethanol. Although moderate and high wine consumption did not change the activity of plasma marker enzymes of tissue damage, the consumption of the 2 alcoholic solutions caused a long-term increase in the activity of aspartate aminotransferase. It seems that wine consumption protects the organism from hepatic lesions induced by ethanol alone.  1997 Elsevier Science Inc. Alcohol Wine Rats Experimental model 1 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed. E-mail: mcbs@astor.urv.es ALTHOUGH chronic and excessive consumption of ethanol is toxic, it has been suggested that a moderate consumption of eth- anol may be beneficial because it reduces the risk of coronary heart disease and prevents the development of noninsulin-depen- dent diabetes mellitus ( 2 ) . The protective effect of alcohol in the vascular system could be attributed to the effects of ethanol on lipid metabolism, by increasing HDL cholesterol (7,21). In the same way, it has also been suggested that moderate wine con- sumption has a protective effect on human health ( 8,15,19 ) . Ep- idemological studies ( 6,10,22 ) have led to the definition of what is known as the ‘‘French Paradox:’’ a greater consumption of cholesterol and saturated fats and a lower rate of mortality from coronary heart disease in those areas where wine is traditionally drunk with meals (1,17). In addition to these effects attributed to ethanol, wine con- sumed in moderation has positive effects due to the presence of phenolic compounds, in particular, procyanidines and flavonoids. Phenols are now recognized as possessing antiallergic, anti-in- flammatory, antiviral, antioxidant, antiproliferative, and anticar- cinogenic activities, as well as affecting some aspects of mam- malian metabolism (15,16). Grape seed tannins have a pronounced antihypercholesterolemic effect in the rat ( 24,25 ) . In humans, wine consumption inhibits platelet aggregation and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, reduces LDL cholesterol, and increases HDL cholesterol (11,23). Several experimental models of alcohol administration have been used to study the pathological effects of ethanol and their prevention. In previous models, ethanol was administered with drinking water or by inhalation, but alcohol levels in blood were not sufficient to cause hepatic lesions. Subsequently, more effec- tive models were used: intragastric ethanol infusion (26) or liq- uid diets (13,14). It has been questioned if these models are nutritionally adequate and whether the hepatic lesions observed in the animals are due to the ethanol or are the result of nutritional problems (4). Experimental results have shown that correction of such nutritional anomalies not only prevents alcoholemia and fatty liver, but also regresses preexisting disorders (20). Thus, the goal of the present study has been to provide an effective model of voluntary consumption of wine by the rat. This situation prevents additional stress or nutritional abnormalities by allowing unrestricted access to feed and water. This situation is more sim- ilar to that present in humans.