Monday, January 21, 2008

Wine health benefits

Are you a wine lover? Here’s good news for you. Study shows that drinking wines either red wine or white wine poses some health benefits. But red wines gets the better verdict because of its higher contents of antioxidant from healing power of resveratrol contains in red grape skins. However, there were news that winemaker world wide are altering the production process of white wine to increase its health benefits.

Here are some of the recent studies about the benefits of wine:

  • Anti-aging effects in red grape skins (Harvard Medical School in Boston, 2004)

  • Improved lung function from antioxidants in white wine (American Thoracic Society, 2002)

  • Coronary heart disease reduced (University of California, Davis, 1995)

  • Healthier blood vessels in elderly (University of Ferrara in Italy, 2004)

  • Ulcer-causing bacteria reduced (American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2003)

  • Cancer cells killed by protein in red grape skins (University of Virginia Health System, 2004)

  • Arteries kept clean by polyphenols in red grape skins (William Harvey Research Institute, 2002)

  • Decreased ovarian cancer risk (The Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia, 2004)

  • Stronger bones (Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology Unit, St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, 2004)

  • Lower risk of stroke (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2001)

  • Lower risk of heart attack for men with high blood pressure (Worcester Medical Center in Massachusetts, 2004)

Most of these studies promote drinking in moderation. Drinking in moderation is the key to obtain the health benefits of wine drinking. Too much wine per day or per week lead to negative effects, that increases your chance of contacting a life threatening illness. Therefore, the amount of wine you drink matters tremendously. So, how much is considered safe and effective? It is recommended that men take no more than 2 drinks per day and women take no more than 1 drink per day.

"One drink" is defined as a 5-ounce glass of red or white wine, 12 ounces of regular beer (1 bottle), or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We bought a resberries wine in Holand during the honeymoon. And know what we love to do? We dress it on top of ice-cream. It's fantastic!

Amidrin said...

Wine with ice-cream? Now, that's something I've never try before. But it got to be a resberries wine to match it is it? I've got to try this out sometimes. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Frankly to say, both my hubby nor I are wine drinker, so drinking the wine purely could be too strong to us. That's y we come out this idea. Anyway, the resberries wine taste sweet, hence we find it suitable to mix in ice-cream. But I think even the normal grape wine can be a good try? :)