wine and health

     A very large review out recently has experts proclaiming that we had it all wrong in believing that moderate drinking was a good thing. As I so often do, I cast a dissenting vote on this one, and offer an alternative (and possible more accurate) interpretation.      This latest study, from the University of Victoria in Canada, is impressive in scope and has been widely reported. In it, Tim Stockwell, study author and the director of the Center for Addictions Research of British Columbia, questions the long-established J-shaped curve which demonstrates that moderate drinkers are healthier and outlive nondrinkers and heavy drinkers. He cites what is termed the “abstainer bias,” meaning that people who choose to abstain from alcohol are different than people who quit drinking because of health reasons. Another term for this is the “sick quitter” hypothesis. The result of lumping sick quitters with never drinkers together is a skew toward poor health i...

National Drink Wine Day was created to celebrate healthy drinking so I thought it would be a good time to list 10 reasons why wine is good for health and longevity. Each of these is well established by peer-reviewed studies, and I have included a reference for those wanting more detail. In no particular order, here are a few of my favorites: 1.        Wine drinkers are smart. A study from Denmark found a strong correlation of IQ to preference for wine. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16185206 2.        Wine drinkers live longer. Daily moderate consumption of wine is associated with longer average lifespan as compared to nondrinkers and beer or spirits drinkers. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11576317 3.        Wine helps prevent diabetes and is good for diabetics. http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/63/1/31.long 4.        Wine drinkers are le...

   Dismissing decades of research on alcohol and health, the UK’s new stringent guidelines on drinking bring to mind a quote from champagne lover Sir Winston Churchill: “Statistics are like a lamppost to a drunk; used more for support than illumination.” In announcing the new policy, England’s chief medical officer and neo-prohibitionist Sally Davies scorned the idea that a daily glass of wine could be healthy, proclaiming it an “old wives’ tale” and suggesting a cup of tea instead. The policy is said to be based on the latest statistics, but do these truly shed any new light? We are hardly in the dark about the effects of wine on health, with many thousands of research papers on record.    Davies’ fundamental mistake is to judge all types of drinking the same while focusing the outcome narrowly on cancer, failing to consider the opposite: that an equally narrow focus on wine drinkers might have different outcomes when overall health is concerned. Nothing in the...

     Much ado has been made about a recent article documenting that the alcohol content in wines is often higher than stated on the label, and increasing. It’s been an open secret among winemakers for some time, but if the trend continues it threatens the whole concept of healthy drinking. Policymakers in the UK and elsewhere are already using it to bolster anti-drinking campaigns.      The analysis, from the University of California Davis and others, was comprehensive and included several factors.  Over the past 2 decades, Old World wines have seen a greater increase in alcohol levels, but New World wines started out higher. Using heat index climate data, the authors found that part of the increase correlated to warmer growing conditions (resulting in higher sugar content translating into more alcohol), and part driven by consumer preference for riper wines with more concentrated flavors. Several factors contribute to the trend and confusion ...

When they come out with a coffee infused with resveratrol, that’s how you know it’s just gone too far. Vera Roasting Company just announced their “ CoffVee” blend , intended to bring “the heart-healthy benefits of red wine” to coffee. Like makers of resveratrol supplements, the idea is based on the claim that it is possible for consumers “to enjoy the heart-healthy benefits of a glass of red wine” with every cup, “minus the alcohol.” If only it were so simple. Here’s why infusing coffee with resveratrol is a bad idea: Coffee is already a heart-healthy drink. Coffee contains some very potent natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, so the addition of resveratrol is unnecessary. A study just out last month evaluated overall causes of mortality in a large population found that coffee consumption was related to lower chances of dying from heart disease, as well as respiratory diseases, diabetes, and pneumonia. The researchers attributed this to improved insulin sensitiv...

A recent headline announcing the results of another study examining the role of alcohol and risk of breast cancer proclaimed that even a glass of wine a day “can significantly increase a woman’s cancer risk.” The connection between drinking and breast cancer has been a troublesome one, the thorn among the rosés, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. It’s not that I mean to make light of all this well-intentioned alarm bell ringing, but the way I see it research on wine and breast cancer just keeps repeating the same mistakes. When it comes to the question of wine and breast cancer, most studies still get it wrong. That’s one reason why I can’t help but be a little bit cynical every October, when pink ribbons start sprouting everywhere, from lapels to football jerseys to cereal boxes. Increased awareness is laudable, but I wonder if these efforts do more to make us feel good than they do to actually make a difference for women with breast cancer. Case in point: the Komen Foundation, with ...

Drinking and depression have problematic relationship, so the consensus from recent studies that moderate red wine consumption correlates to lower odds of depression may seem hard to swallow. But it is clear that daily wine drinkers show a J-shaped curve for clinical depression: lower in moderation, higher in excess. Some very good data comes from a long term study called PREDIMED (“Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea” (Prevention with Mediterranean Diet)), which is a randomized, multicenter, controlled, clinical trial conducted in Spain involving more than 5500 subjects. At up to 7 years of follow-up, wine intake within the range of 2-7 drinks per week was significantly associated with lower risk of incident depression. Resveratrol, wine’s miracle molecule, offers a potential explanation though it is likely the whole story. There is an experimental model of depression in rats, allowing for measurement of depressive symptoms in response to various drug treatments (no model yet for the...