About 20-odd years ago, I had a mild stroke (a transischemic attack, or TIA for short) which I recovered completely from–part of my post-hospitalization regimen was my neurologist’s recommendation that I avoid red wine. As I recall (and my memory of those days is quite hazy, for obvious reasons–I was severely aphasic, and language meant about as much to me as Chinese arithmetic), he’d come across some literature of the time (early-1980s) that correlated red wine with migraine, and migraine symptoms with stroke.
Since I was a white wine kind of guy, with very few tangible protocols to apply (basically it was “Be lucky,” and I guess I have been–they had me on various blood-thinners for a few years but mostly I’ve relied on good luck in avoiding another TIA) but I’m just curious if this is totally baseless, a weird idea that my neurologist was recommending for a few weeks but has no basis in medicine.
You won’t be affecting my life if you answer, since I don’t drink red wine anyway and don’t plan to start even if I get a thousand responses saying that my neurologist was a total whackjob, but I’ve been quite scrupulous in avoiding red wine (even to the point of being a pain in the ass when someone tells me, “This is amazing wine, go ahead, take a sip”) and I’m curious if anyone has heard of such a correlation.
I googled “red wine” and “trans-ischemic attack” and basically got nothing, and I’ve spoken about avoiding red wine to doctors several times over the years (no neurologists, though) and they’ve all looked at me like I was asking about voodoo.
IANA Doctor, but here is what I know from personal experience. Red wine contains a substance called tyramine, which is said to be a trigger in some people who are subject to migraine and other headaches.
Also, when one is taking a MAO inhibitor (a type of antidepressant) one is told to avoid foods containing tyramine, as the *combination of the two * can lead to stroke. When I was taking MAOIs, my physician gave me a list of tyramine-containing foods/beverages, along with a very strong warning to avoid them. Red wine was prominent on the list.
I had never heard that tyramine by itself is a stroke risk. It is in a lot of common foods other than red wine, including soy sauce and aged cheeses.
Interesting. Tyramine is one more word I can add to my Google list.
Funny thing was, I was clinically depressed for months after my stroke, but back then without insurance the question of anti-depressants never even came up, which struck me as odd since severe depression commonly accompanies the stroke recovery process. My doctors told me that I’d probably suffer from depression, and years afterwards I wondered why no one tried to do anything about it.
I’m sure I’ve never been on an MAOI-type regimen. Thanks for the info.