Flour Made From White Wine Grape Seeds Shows Functional Benefits

A federal government scientist, working with a company that makes wine grape flours, has determined that hamsters whose diet included flour milled from white wine grape seeds, had lower blood cholesterol, less fatty liver disease and less weight gain than hamsters fed a normal diet. Wallace Yokoyama of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) also found that leptin, known as the “satiety hormone” and usually high in obese people, decreased when the animals ate flour made from Chardonnay grape seeds. Likewise, the protein adiponectin, believed to help prevent diabetes and atherosclerosis, increased. The ARS and the maker of the flour, WholeVine Products (Sonoma, Calif.), have applied for a patent for their technology.