Much has been said about red wine and white wine and how they relate to your health
Some of the best wines in the world can help your heart with preventative care. A drink a day, especially of red wine, is believed by the medical community to have antioxidants that may better your health and prevent heart disease.
It’s possible that antioxidants, flavonoids, and resveratrol, have heart-healthy benefits. Antioxidants, found in both red and white wine, generally protect your cells from free radicals that can damage your blood vessels.
Of all the types of alcohol, red wine appears to have heart-healthy benefits such as polyphenols, known as resveratrol. Resveratrol is found in the skin of grapes.
Red wine is made from grapes that have fermented with the skins intact as white wine is fermented without the skins. Dryer red wines are the best wines for your health as they tend to have higher concentrations of flavonoids.
According to Yale-New Haven Hospital, Cabernet Sauvignon is the best while Pinot Noir and Petit Syrah are close seconds.
You can also benefit from the resveratrol found in grapes, grape juice, and other foods such as blueberries, cranberries, and peanuts. This means that you do not have to drink red wine to better your health. White wine does not have many flavonoids.
Heart-Healthy Benefits
Research performed on mice has shown that resveratrol protects the lining of blood vessels in your heart, therefore reducing “bad” cholesterol known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL). LDL can build up in the arteries. LDL narrows the blood vessels, forms plaque, and then restricts blood flow.
In fact, it’s thought that resveratrol reduces swelling and inflammation, prevents obesity and diabetes, and promotes blood clots. However, it is important to note that a person would need to drink over 60 liters of red wine every day to get the same results. There are a number of heart-healthy benefits from the white wine and red wine as well as other types of alcohol:
- Helps prevent artery damage
- Increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol which is the good kind of cholesterol
- Reduces the formation of blood clots
A Word of Caution
Doctors are careful to advise patients to be wary of drinking for health benefits as alcohol is addictive and can cause additional health issues to pre-existing conditions.
There are also some downsides to drinking which can have many harmful effects on your body.
- Alcohol-related accidents
- Cardiomyopathy – weak heart muscles relating to heart failure
- High blood pressure
- High triglycerides
- Liver damage
- Obesity
- Some types of cancer
Do not drink alcohol if you have a weak heart, have experienced heart failure, are pregnant, or taking aspirin each day. If you are unsure, talk to your physician about the appropriate daily intake.
All in Moderation
Moderate drinking is different depending on if you are a male or female because of body size and metabolization. Moderation for men is 2 drinks a day and 1 drink a day for women.
One drink is 5 ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof spirits. If you drink more than three glasses of alcohol it can increase your triglycerides which is a form of lipid (or fat) in the blood.
High levels of triglycerides can harden the arteries, increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The Best Wines for Your Health – Red Wine or White Wine
