Health benefits of drinking wine

foo d wrote:on a related note to this discussion, my doctor just prescribed red wine as a way to control my high cholesterol. a while back, i'd have danced a jig at doctor-sanctioned drinking, but, alas, my heavier drinking days are behind me. now, i'm lucky if i can even get through a glass of wine every so often, let a lone 1-2 glasses a day. i was perfectly happy not drinking much.

Food,

I am a bit surprised by your doctor's prescription, sounds like he is a bit old school. Everything I have read about the benefits of red wine suggest that the benefits are not so correlative (or relatively significant) as to recommend that a person who does not drink, start to drink or start to drink just red wine, given the known negatives of alchohol. If you consider yourself lucky to get through a glass of wine, perhaps this "treatment" is not for you.

In fact, the same beneficial anti-oxidents found in red wine are thought to be, by those more qualified than I, in all dark skinned fruits, such as blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. I suggest you re-visit the issue with your doctor and explain that you no longer care to drink. Nutri-hype should not have an overbearing influence on a healthy lifestyle.

You might also look into the benefits of pomegranate juice (buy from Middle Eastern stores to avoid nutri-hype prices at health food stores). Of course I am no doctor and, more importantly, I am not your doctor.

See the following quote from the American Heart Association.

How alcohol or wine affects cardiovascular risk merits further research, but right now the American Heart Association does not recommend drinking wine or any other form of alcohol to gain these potential benefits. The AHA does recommend that to reduce your risk you should talk to your doctor about lowering your cholesterol and blood pressure, controlling your weight, getting enough exercise and following a healthy diet. There is no scientific proof that drinking wine or any other alcoholic beverage can replace these conventional measures.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4422

I second that opinion - for special occasions (with those that appreciate fine champagne) i'll buy a nice $$$ bottle(rene geoffroy, dampierre) for the first bottle, but then it's cristalino from there out.

The best inexpensive sparkling wine that I have found is the Pierre Jourdan Cap Classique from of all places South Africa. My husband and I first had it while in South Africa for our honeymoon, it has recently become readily available at Sam's and Binny's.

I am a bit surprised by your doctor's prescription, sounds like he is a bit old school. Everything I have read about the benefits of red wine suggest that the benefits are not so correlative (or relatively significant) as to recommend that a person who does not drink, start to drink or start to drink just red wine, given the known negatives of alchohol. If you consider yourself lucky to get through a glass of wine, perhaps this "treatment" is not for you.

Just some empirical evidence on the benefits of red wine, when I was pregnant and Thor's PA severely curtailed his wine consumption, his cholesterol rose quite a bit without any change in eating or dieting. His doctor's suggestion was to continue watching the diet, continue exercising and to add back the wine.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for wine as part of a healthy lifestyle, or more accurately, for my lifestyle

Its just that everything that I read about the subject (excluding puff pieces by the wine industry) suggests that there is not enough evidence for non-drinkers to start consuming red wine just for the benefits. However, switching from another alchoholic beverage to wine is generally considered a positive.

If Food is having difficulty making it through a glass of red wine, perhaps he should revisit the issue with his doctor. Though I suspect that his doctor said something more along the lines "there is nothing wrong with a glass of wine or two and may have some additional benefits" rather than a prescription requiring the consumption of red wine. [Of course, I was not there]

Knowing what little I do about raising kids, I think T'sPA days of hard drinking are in front rather than behind....so here's to keeping our cholesterol in check.

I think the evidence regarding wine is more mixed than you wish to admit. The primary difference between the research that says wine is good for you, and that which suggests it is bad, is the amount consumed.

What is clear, and pretty much undisputed, is that drinking a lot of any alcohol regularly (say 3 glasses or more a day, though this does depend on your size) is bad for you.

It is also clear that, for most people, drinking one or two glasses a day is not bad for you. Beyond that, I think the evidence is still coming in. There are some indications that small amounts have beneficial effects (and personally, I can say they do for me - my mood improves significantly).

Anyway, the most interesting thing for me is that doctors recommend wine.

Not to go into too much detail, but when my first child was born, my wife went into prolonged, but mild and fairly uneventful labor. After staying in the hospital for a couple of hours, the doctor came by and said, "Go home, have a light dinner, drink a glass of wine, and relax."

This was about 18 years ago, so apparently doctors have recognized some therapeutic value in wines for quite a while.

Not to go into too much detail, but when my first child was born, my wife went into prolonged, but mild and fairly uneventful labor. After staying in the hospital for a couple of hours, the doctor came by and said, "Go home, have a light dinner, drink a glass of wine, and relax."

On a similar topic, I found it very interesting to learn that it is not uncommon for doctors to recommend that a pregnant woman have a glass of wine after an amnio recognizing that both the emotional and physical stress of the procedure might heighten the possibility of miscarriage.

Folks:

I don't doubt that there are many, and I mean many, good reasons to enjoy wine in moderation. Further, I am not at all surprised that quite a few doctors recommend wine both for cardiovascular health and as a depressant to relieve stress (not to sure of the pregnancy thing, but sounds sound).

The point of FOOD's post, or at least how I interpreted it, was that he did not enjoy drinking wine, but was doing so only for the cardiovascular benefits. Everything I read to date (excluding puff pieces by the wine industry) has suggested that non-drinkers (people who wish to drink less) should not start drinking red wine solely for the health benefits. There are other ways to go about increasing anti-oxident intake.

I recall a funny story, which I think was told by Dennis Miller, in response to someone who wanted the benefits of red wine to come in something smaller and more convenient like a pill, he said "Yeah, they call it a grape". The fact that more people would rather have a glass of red wine than a handful of grapes.... well that's a whole other discussion.

pd

thanks for the spirited discussion. is it the antioxidants that are the key to the red wine's real or imagined benefits or do red wine's benefits come from alcohol, generally, and the tannins? the latter is whay my doc seemed to indicate.

my understanding, and i might be wrong, was (1) that antioxidants ward off those nasty free-radicals, which, in great quantities (whatever that means), are unhealthy in a number of ways, not just heart-disease specific ones and (2) that red wine is healthy in a heart-disease specific way.

if it's just the antioxidants that i need, and like i said, i don't think that's the case, heck, i'll just get me a huge crate of frozen blueberries.

foo d wrote:thanks for the spirited discussion. is it the antioxidants that are the key to the red wine's real or imagined benefits or do red wine's benefits come from alcohol, generally, and the tannins? the latter is whay my doc seemed to indicate.

my understanding, and i might be wrong, was (1) that antioxidants ward off those nasty free-radicals, which, in great quantities (whatever that means), are unhealthy in a number of ways, not just heart-disease specific ones and (2) that red wine is healthy in a heart-disease specific way.

if it's just the antioxidants that i need, and like i said, i don't think that's the case, heck, i'll just get me a huge crate of frozen blueberries.

I've seen stuff that has claimed that the health benefits are as much due alcohol as due to it being from grape juice. Or, that one can get similar health benefits from moderate whiskey drinking. (Moderate).

That is not, however, a knock on the anti-oxidant power of red wine. And did you see the story in the Chicago Trib a month or so back on the anti-oxidant power of coffee?

Rob

doc said grape juice wasn't going to cut it; i asked. that's when she mentioned the tannins (and, implicitly, the alcohol).

i'll have to check out the coffee benefits. now that's something i can drink to excess.

If it is the tannins you might also try tea.Assuming you like it.

tea, i like. i'll check with the doc about the possibility of substituting a nice chianti (possibly with fava beans) with an oolong/jasmine/chamomile and blueberry cocktail.

foo d wrote:when she mentioned the tannins (and, implicitly, the alcohol)

First, LTH this is not the best place to get health advice, I would liken it to the person on the street reviews, though there seems to be quite a few folks with above average Food IQ

Not sure why you say tannins (and, implicitly, the alcohol). Did you mean your doctor was implying the alcohol part, when she said grape juice would not cut it?

Just so we are clear the alchohol does not contain tannin, tannin is is present in the grape skins, which is why red wine and not white wine are recommended for cardiovascular health. Yes, green tea and maybe even black tea also contain lots of tannins. Though red wine tannins develop over a period of years, not sure how that effects the health benefits.

It is the red wine tannins that accounts for what is known as the French paradox, which is to say a diet rich in fats, but low incidence of heart disease.

This is not to discount the depressant (stress relief) properties of mderate alcohol consumption. But, that is stress and not cholesterol.

Yes coffee and even chocolate have antioxidents. However, the amount of antioxident in chocolate is so low in comparison to the fat content, that the only folks claiming the health benefits of chocolate selling it. (Ed. This claim is unsubstantiated)

...and that exhausts about all I wish to share, you are better off to google some health related websites for more information. I like the following:

Free health topic library database

http://medlineplus.gov/

NIH: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. The NHLBI guidelines provide you with a new approach for the measurement of overweight and obesity and a set of steps for safe and effective weight loss.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/index.htm

Great references PD. Thanks.

I assume the benefits do not apply to herbal tea because it is not from the actual tea plant but from herbs brewed like tea.

hattyn wrote:I assume the benefits do not apply to herbal tea because it is not from the actual tea plant but from herbs brewed like tea.

Your assumption is correct; which is not to say that herbal teas don't have their own benefits [peppermint tea for upset tummies being a good example].

In some places in the tea world, a distinction is drawn between "tea" [Camilla Sinensis] and a tisane [any other leaf brewed like a tea]. And I'm not sure where that leaves Japanese or Korean twig tea or barley cha.

Also, besides wine, there have been a number of studies showing the health benefits of beer. Many beers, like red wines, are rich in antioxidents. Beer that is unfiltered and unpasteurized is also rich in B vitamins (from the yeast). Microbrewed and homebrewed beer is probably healthier than the mass produced stuff.

And as with anything, moderation is the key. Too much is not good for you.


Tim

Having recently been diagnosed with high cholesterol, and been to the doctor for lots of advice, here's what I can tell you:

red wine - 1 glass per day is shown to have some health benefits. If you drink more, that's not going to help you any more

chocolate - buy at least 70% cocao content, like Lindt or Droste black, which has more anti-oxidants and less trans-fats

apples - eat them with the skin, I assume this goes for pears as well

Lipitor (or other statins) - I take 10mg a day and have seen my LDLs drop 80 points. The stuff really works. See a doctor for a prescription.

oatmeal - the old fashioned, cook for 5-10 minutes kind. Have a bowl for breakfast; has the added benefit of reducing bacon and egg intake.

flax seed - I add 2T ground flax seed to my oatmeal in the morning. This is one of the few ways you can raise your HDLs (good cholestrerol). You can buy already ground flax seed for about $10/lb or whole flax seeds for $1/lb and buy a new coffee grinder to go with it.

fatty fish - like salmon, mackerel, sardines, and anchovies, help your good cholesterol fight your bad cholesterol.

green tea - contains anti-oxidants (and caffeine). I like jasmine pearls.
rooibus (Afrikaans for red bush) - makes an herbal type tea, lots of anti-oxidants, no caffeine. Todd & Holland http://www.todd-holland.com has a great selection of both.

In general, try to avoid deep fried foods, eat more salads and fresh fruits, and walk a lot for exercise.

I agree with everything Peter said.

People want clear "this is good, this is bad" prescriptions and most things don't work that way.

But here are a couple of statements I feel can be made with confidence:

No one should start drinking because of the supposed health benefits.

More than moderate drinking likely will have more negative than positive health consequences.

Moderate alcohol consumption is compatible with a healthy lifestyle.