Study Tries to Answer if Wine is Good or Bad For You

A study from Spain released this month confirms what people that advocate abstinence from alcohol have long believed: it isn’t the alcohol that makes red wine good for you; it’s the grapes.

While red wine lovers welcomed earlier studies suggesting that drinking moderate amounts of red wine were useful to one’s health, recent research may taste sour. Spanish researchers went the extra mile in researching the results of alcohol in wine. They gave teams of men who were in danger of coronary heart diseaseqax and had high blood pressure red wine and non-alcoholic red wine. They also gave a control group only gin to see if it was really the alcohol and not the ingredients in wine that was beneficial.

“The study, published last week in Circulation Research, concludes that the blood-pressure-lowering effects of red wine are credited to not its alcohol content, however to the useful chemicals known as polyphenols that it contains, even in its non-alcoholic kind,” according to a September 10, 2012, New York Times health blog.

In fact, the study found that the men drinking the non-alcoholic wine had the most effective result. In other words, it appears that the alcohol in wine really mutes the health benefits of the polyphenols found in grapes. And no surprise to us, the group drinking simply gin had no measurable health profit.

Most doctors and health consultants agree: alcohol consumption isn't healthy or safe. Its use accounts for 2.5 million death each year and is that the third largest risk issue for premature mortality, disability, and loss of health, according to the World Health Organization. Furthermore, alcohol use is linked to cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, colon and breast. It actually raises blood pressure, weakens the heart and immune system, and it may also increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

So, is that the only way to get the utmost heart strengthening, blood pressure lowering benefits of grapes achieved from drinking non-alcoholic wine? Thankfully no. By going straight to the source of wine–Concord grapes– you can get the benefits without having to purchase what is basically vinted and bottled grape juice.

Concord grapes have one of the highest antioxidant scores among fruit. Also, they contain many different types of polyphenols as well as resveratrol, the polyphenol that is believed to possess the healing properties in grapes and is found mostly within the skin and seeds

If you would like to shield your heart and your mind, drink Welch’s pure 100 percent fruit (made using the entire Concord grape including the skin and seeds), consider taking a natural resveratrol supplement, or the most effective option: eat red or purple grapes fresh from the vine and reap the benefits of eating the whole fruit in its original package. If you want to minimize the health benefits from grapes, add alcohol.

Also Read: A glass of wine a day may advance your death