It has long been known that dangerous mycotoxins produced by fungus
can contaminate food including peanuts, coffee, grapes, and many other
foods. Wine also can contain very small amounts of aflatoxins and
ochratoxin. These natural contaminants are heavily regulated both in
the US and Europe.

An article appeared in the March 22, 2010, issue of Chemical and
Engineering News, a news publication of the American Chemical Society.
The article "Wine's Mycotoxin Profile Grows" is on p 44.There is an
online site at www.cen-online.org, but you can read this article there
only if you are a member of the ACS. The printed publication is
received by many ACS members and is found in university and some large
public libraries.

A recent publication by Nielsen and others in Denmark has found
another mycotoxin known as Fumonisin B2 in wine. The original research
is presented in J. Agric. Food Chem., DOI: 10.1021/jf904520t .This
journal likely is difficult to find outside of a few technical
libraries. The research group developed testing methods and tested 77
red and white wines from around the world in vintages from 1991 to
2008. Fumonisin B2 was detected in 18 wines in concentrations ranging
from 1 to 25 micrograms/L. A researcher at the U.S Department of
Agriculture said that even the maximum concentration detected in the
wines is still only about 1 percent of the guidance level for
Fumonisins in maize.

Thus it appears that there is no need to become excited about this new
finding, at least for the wines studied. Likely the study should be
extended to more wines. It is still possible some wine could be found
with enough Fumonisin B2 to be of concern. Perhaps a really nasty,
cheap, sweet wine made from overripe grapes containing some that are
moldy and rotten would be interesting to test.

It will be interesting to see if some of the general press picks this
up and if they present the fiindings correctly.

Professor Lipton

Translation required please

Antipodean Andy

On Mar 29, 1:40*am, "st.helier" > wrote:
> Professor Lipton
>
> Translation required please
>
> Antipodean Andy

Lipton does not seem to have been around for about a week - perhaps he
is away on spring break. I now have a link to the published research
article. It is http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf904520t . You can
view the abstract for free, but it costs $US 30 to view the complete
article for 48 hours. In addition I find my post here is at a group
called FoodJunkies where I am listed as guest. I do not recall ever
hearing of that site are visiting it. I perhaps need to contact my
physician to see if I am suffering from a age-related dementia :-) .

On Mar 29, 5:57*pm, cwdjrxyz > wrote:
> On Mar 29, 1:40*am, "st.helier" > wrote:
>
> > Professor Lipton
>
> > Translation required please
>
> > Antipodean Andy
>
> Lipton does not seem to have been around for about a week - perhaps he
> is away on spring break. I now have a link to the published research
> article. It ishttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf904520t. You can
> view the abstract for free, but it costs $US 30 to view the complete
> article for 48 hours. In addition I find my post here is at a group
> called FoodJunkies where I am listed as guest. I do not recall ever
> hearing of that site are visiting it. I perhaps need to contact my
> physician to see if I am suffering from a age-related dementia :-) .

The names/sites seem to change, but there are a variety of these sites
that "aggregate" (steal) content from here. There was one that
assigned us "user names" in attempt to make it look like we were
participants on their forum. I believe I was Arizona Girl!

On Mar 29, 4:57*pm, cwdjrxyz > wrote:
> On Mar 29, 1:40*am, "st.helier" > wrote:
>
> > Professor Lipton
>
> > Translation required please
>
> > Antipodean Andy
>
> Lipton does not seem to have been around for about a week - perhaps he
> is away on spring break. I now have a link to the published research
> article. It ishttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf904520t. You can
> view the abstract for free, but it costs $US 30 to view the complete
> article for 48 hours. In addition I find my post here is at a group
> called FoodJunkies where I am listed as guest. I do not recall ever
> hearing of that site are visiting it. I perhaps need to contact my
> physician to see if I am suffering from a age-related dementia :-) .

To see one example of why fumonisins are of concern in relation to
human health see: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstrea...ng%20Final.pdf
.. In this document you find:

"FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) evaluated the
fumonisins and allocated a group provisional maximum tolerable daily
intake (PMTDI) of 2 ìg/kg body weight to FB1, FB2 and FB3, alone or in
combination (WHO 2002)."

Even for a light human of weight 50 kg(a bit over 100 pounds), it
would require over 4 L per day of wine containing 25 micro grams per L
(the highest value found in wine in the study) to exceed the maximum
tolerable daily intake above. For a relatively large human, of weight
100 kg(a bit over 200 pounds) it would require over 8 L per day to
exceed the limit. Thus, unless wines are found that have much higher
levels of fumonisins than those reported in the study, it seems a
person who drank over 4 to 8 L of wine a day might have other severe
health problems long before any health issues produced by high levels
of fumonisins,such as cancer, had time to develop.

On Mar 29, 9:29*pm, cwdjrxyz > wrote:
> On Mar 29, 4:57*pm, cwdjrxyz > wrote:

> "FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) evaluated the
> fumonisins and allocated a group provisional maximum tolerable daily
> intake (PMTDI) of 2 ìg/kg body weight to FB1, FB2 and FB3, alone or in
> combination (WHO 2002)."

If the above is posted and/or viewed on Google groups, Google may make
an error and print 2ig/kg instead of (microgram symbol)/kg even though
the quote was copied and pasted from the article.

On 3/29/10 5:57 PM, cwdjrxyz wrote:
> On Mar 29, 1:40 am, > wrote:
>> Professor Lipton
>>
>> Translation required please
>>
>> Antipodean Andy
>
> Lipton does not seem to have been around for about a week - perhaps he
> is away on spring break. I now have a link to the published research
> article. It is http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf904520t . You can
> view the abstract for free, but it costs $US 30 to view the complete
> article for 48 hours. In addition I find my post here is at a group
> called FoodJunkies where I am listed as guest. I do not recall ever
> hearing of that site are visiting it. I perhaps need to contact my
> physician to see if I am suffering from a age-related dementia :-) .

Good call. It was actually our son's Spring Break, which we spent
bouncing around Florida (and effectively out of Internet contact).
Interesting article, BTW, but as you say not anything to get terribly
worked up about. FWIW, fumonisin inhibits the production of a class of
fatty molecules known as ceramides and leads to toxicity of the liver
and kidneys.

Mark Lipton

--
alt.food.wine FAQ: http://winefaq.cwdjr.net