Red Wine: Elixir Of Life?

You’ve probably heard that when it comes to alcohol, red wine is the healthy choice. But what makes it different from other forms of alcohol and what are its health benefits?

Red wine doesn’t hold the same stigma as other forms of alcohol. While governments worry about alcohol-related diseases, there are countless studies showing that red wine could actually have health benefits. The ‘French Paradox’ was officially recognised in 1992 after researchers found that despite eating a diet high in saturated fats, French people had a 40% lower mortality rate from heart disease. Could their consumption of red wine have a protective effect? The benefits don’t seem to stop there and studies have found that drinking red wine could prevent cancer, reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and could maybe even help treat asthma, arthritis and gum disease.

A healthy drink? Scientists have found that red wine contains antioxidant compounds that are dissolved from the skins and seeds of grapes during fermentation.

Natural antioxidants

But what makes red wine different from white wine, beer or spirits? Researchers have found that red wine contains antioxidant compounds called polyphenols which are dissolved from the skins and seeds of grapes by the alcohol produced during fermentation. Since the skins of grapes are removed when making white wine, it doesn’t contain as many polyphenols as red varieties. A particular compound called resveratrol has been credited for heart disease and cancer prevention and typically white wines contain only 1–5% of the resveratrol present in red wines.

A number of other plants also produce resveratrol, including tea, raspberries and peanuts. Since it is an antioxidant, it helps neutralize the production of free radicals, the naturally-occurring oxygen complexes in the body that cause cell damage and disease. Studies suggest that these polyphenols can also reduce strain on blood vessels and prolong the time it takes blood clots, which can cause heart attacks and strokes, to form.

But the benefits of red wine may not only be due to polyphenols. A study published in the British Medical Journal in January 2006 found that wine drinkers usually have healthier diets than beer drinkers. So how can we be sure that it is the wine rather than the diet? A recent study by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston attempted to answer this question and found that men with healthy lifestyles who consumed between one and a half and two drinks a day had a 40 to 60% reduced risk of heart attack compared with healthy non-drinkers.