wine and health

We hear so much about wine being healthy in moderation. Then there is the popular (and cynical) saying, “all things in moderation, including moderation.” If you are drinking wine for your health, and who doesn’t, it is actually quite important to define the term “moderation” if we are to get the maximum benefit. If you drink for purely aesthetic reasons, or anesthetic reasons for that matter, then you have other considerations to deal with. But here’s the deal on moderation: Studies on wine drinking and health in populations often use weekly alcohol consumption as a convenient measure. From data like that we get the familiar J-shaped curve, showing that maximum health benefits are associated with about 2-3 glasses of wine a day for men and half that for women, and disease risk about equal to that of nondrinkers at about double that level of consumption (the bottom loop of the “J”.) But we also know that binge drinking is particularly bad, so the pattern of daily drinking is critical. ...