Red Wine & Heart: Any Match Beyond the Color?

Excess Consumption is Needed for Reaping Antioxidant Benefits

If you like to drink red wine just drink it. Don’t make up false stories about its advantages or their effect on our health. That’s beyond acceptable. Since ages we have witnessed hearsay stories and theories about the advantages of drinking red wine on our heart health. The French paradox boasts about how the people of France live a healthy life despite their indulgence in high-fat foods and wine but no research has established a cause-and-effect link between alcohol and better health. A complete briefing about the French Paradox is given in the website www.firsteatright.com. We only have few studies showing a meagre link between consuming wine and reduced risk of death due to heart disease.
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Any form of alcohol is injurious to health and causes negative effects on our well-being. We do say that dark chocolate helps in weight loss or red wine improves heart health but we don’t have concrete evidences supporting such theories. Physicians question whether red wine plays a role in promoting heart health or if coincidentally its those people who drink wine are also the ones who follow a healthy Mediterranean diet or other such diets that are said to be protective for the heart.

What Makes us Think Red Wine is Good for the Heart?
The common theory is that red wine contains an antioxidant called resveratrol which is also found in the skin of blueberries and peanuts apart from grapes-the main ingredient to prepare the wine. Antioxidants are substances that help in preventing or delaying cell damage and we have studies showing that resveratrol helps in lowering cholesterol and blood pressure levels-some of the contributing factors for heart disease in people. Let’s assume that this antioxidant protects the heart but even if does, how much of it is needed to perform this function? According to research we need to consume way above recommended levels (suggested levels include one drink in the case of females and 1-2 drinks in the case of males) of red wine to reap the benefits of heart health.

Surprisingly, we do have studies showcasing the goodness of alcohol consumption in terms of raising good HDL cholesterol levels and decreasing risk of increased blood sugar levels. But our people don’t have the habit of stopping with 1-2 drinks but continue until they are ready to pass out. Such excessive indulgence increases the risk of obesity, liver damage, cancer, stroke and unwanted problems with the heart. Alcohol-related heart troubles are extremely bad as they increase blood pressure levels and promote arrhythmias, cause cardiomyopathy or result in heart failure.

Contrarily, showing that moderate consumption of alcohol improves heart health is not an easy task as we need to monitor various factors such as gender, age, cardiovascular risk and diet, follow up on the participants for quite a long time and test between different alcohols such as the red wine, white wine, spirit and beer. So, we are good with two things: Firstly, there are no clear studies proving the positive effects of alcohol on heart health and secondly, if you wish to drink despite inconclusive results please do so in moderation to avoid harmful effects on health.