In moderation, red wine has long been considered to be heart-healthy. Red wine’s alcohol and specific components called antioxidants might aid in the prevention of coronary artery disease, which causes heart attacks.
There’s no clear evidence that red wine causes fewer heart attacks. However, antioxidants in red wine may raise levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol) and prevent cholesterol plaque build-up, according to some experts.
Extreme quantities of alcohol can have severe repercussions on one’s health. Doctors do not recommend that you begin drinking alcohol to improve your heart for everyone in your family, especially if you have a history of alcoholism. However, if red wine is part of your evening meal, drinking it moderately appears to benefit one’s heart.
Alcohol is one of the most widely consumed psychoactive drugs in the world. It is used as a recreational drug, a mood enhancer, and a prescriptive agent. It is also used to treat a wide range of medical conditions including insomnia, depression, anxiety, and many others. Many patients getting heart attack from alcohol.
How Is Red Wine Heart Healthy?
There are antioxidants in red wine known as polyphenols that may help prevent blood vessel damage in the heart’s lining. Resveratrol is a polyphenol found in red wine studied for its health advantages. When alcohol is consumed moderately, it can provide some protection against disease.
Resveratrol may help prevent vessel damage, blood lipids that contribute to heart disease, and blood clotting. However, studies on resveratrol are conflicting. Resveratrol has been linked in some research to a decreased risk of inflammation and blood clotting, which can lower your chance of cardiac illness.
However, research reveals no advantages of resveratrol in lowering the risk of heart disease. More study is required to assess whether resveratrol reduces inflammation and blood clotting.
Resveratrol in Grapes, Supplements, and Other Foods
The skin of the grapes used to produce red wine is where the resveratrol in red wine comes from. Because red wine is fermented with grape skins for a more extended period than white wine, it has more resveratrol. Consuming grapes or drinking grape juice may provide resveratrol without consuming alcohol. Grape juice, in particular red and purple varieties, may give similar heart-healthy advantages as red wine.
In addition, peanuts, blueberries, and cranberries include resveratrol. It’s unclear how eating grapes or other foods compare to drinking red wine to enhance heart health. The amount of resveratrol in meals and red wine can vary greatly.
Resveratrol, a chemical found in grapes and other fruits, has been studied for its anti-aging effects. There are supplements on the market that contain resveratrol. Researchers have discovered no ill effects from taking resveratrol supplements, but most of the resveratrol in supplements is not absorbed by your body.
How Might Alcohol Help the Heart?
There’s still no definitive proof that beer, white wine, or hard liquor are worse for you than red wine when it comes to heart health. Moderate quantities of all types of alcohol have been shown in various studies to be good for the heart, not just red wine alcohol. It’s believed that because of its antioxidant properties, alcohol:
- Boosts HDL cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol)
- Minimize the formation of blood clots and thrombus.
- It helps to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering elevated levels of “bad” cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) in your blood.
- Improve the performance of the cells that line your blood vessels by increasing circulation.
- In moderation, or not at all, enjoy your drink.
The heart-healthy effects of red wine and other alcoholic beverages have been established. Moderate quantities of alcohol, including red wine, appear to reduce the incidence of heart disease. However, it’s worth noting that studies comparing moderate drinkers to non-drinkers may overstate the advantages of modest drinking since non-drinkers might already have health issues.
Before we can determine whether red wine is superior to other types of alcohol, such as beer or spirits, further study is required.
The American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute do not advise that you start drinking alcohol to avoid heart disease. Alcohol can be habit-forming and may cause or exacerbate other health issues. Drinks too much alcohol raises your risk of:
- Liver and pancreatic illnesses
- Heart failure
- High blood pressure
- Certain types of cancer
- Stroke
- Accidents, violence, and suicide
- Weight gain and obesity
Avoid alcohol altogether if you:
- Are pregnant
- Have a family or personal history of alcoholism.
- Have alcoholism and/or a liver or pancreatic disease?
- Heart failure or a weak heart
- Is taking certain medications
If you have concerns about the advantages and dangers of drinking, see your doctor get personalized advice.
If you drink red wine already, stick to a reasonable amount. That means:
- Up to one drink a day for women of all ages.
- Up to one drink a day for men older than age 65.
- Up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and younger. Because men on average weigh more than women, they have a higher limit because they typically contain more of an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol.
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Drinking Red Wine for Heart Health?
For years, research has shown a link between drinking a moderate amount of red wine and excellent heart health, but experts advise determining what that means before you start sipping every day.
No evidence drinking alcohol improves heart health. Instead, research has shown an association between wine and such benefits as a decreased chance of dying from heart disease.
It’s uncertain whether red wine is directly connected with this advantage or if other elements are involved, according to Dr. Robert Kloner, chief science officer and director of cardiovascular research at Huntington Medical Research Institutes and a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
Wine consumers may have a healthier lifestyle and diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, proven to protect against heart disease. However, you may not have to consume red wine to reap the health benefits, according to Kloner. A reduction in heart disease risk has also been linked to moderate amounts of beer and spirits.
Red wine is considered beneficial to the heart due to its antioxidants, especially resveratrol, which can be found in grapes’ skins and peanuts, and blueberries. Resveratrol has been found to lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure in several studies.
Dr. Richard Kloner, the senior vice president of research at the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization dedicated to health and fitness, stated: “There’s a debate about whether resveratrol is cardioprotective or not. Furthermore, there is also uncertainty about how much resveratrol you need to ingest to acquire a protective effect. To obtain the same amount of resveratrol that is protective would most likely necessitate an excess of wine.
If you drink alcohol, the American Heart Association and the Department of Health and Human Services recommend that you do so in moderation. For men, this means no more than one to two drinks per day, according to the guidelines. (One drink is defined as 12 oz of beer, 4 oz of wine, 1.5 oz of 80-proof spirits, or 1 oz of 100-proof spirits.)
Moderate drinking has been linked to reducing the risk of diabetes, although some medical studies suggest that light alcohol consumption may have health advantages. On the other hand, excessive alcohol can bring about a slew of health issues, including liver damage, obesity, some types of cancer, and stroke.
“Alcohol is harmful to the heart in excess. It can cause raised blood pressure and arrhythmias” Kloner said. It might induce cardiomyopathy, which is when alcohol is toxic to cardiac muscle cells, resulting in heart failure.
Proving that light drinking is beneficial to your heart health would be difficult, according to Kloner. Ideally, it would require a large prospective study that assigns people to a no-drinking group versus a moderate-drinking group and compares various sorts of alcohol – red wine, white wine, beer, and spirits – to see if one is better.
“You’d have to measure a variety of things, like age, gender, cardiac risk, and their diet. You’d have to keep track of them for many years to do that,” he added.
The message isn’t to go out and start drinking for the time being. “However, if you do drink, moderate consumption is the best option,” Kloner added.
Is Wine Good for Your Heart?
People throughout the world adore wine. Wine brings pleasure not just to your taste buds but also to your sense of sight, smell, and touch. Wine has been used as a source of inspiration by philosophers, artists, scientists, writers, and poets throughout history. According to renowned winemaker Luis Fernando Olaverri, “Wine is the only artwork you can consume.”
But is wine healthy?
Wine enthusiasts have probably heard that red wine, particularly Shiraz, can be good for the heart. On the other hand, some health experts claim that no amount of drinking is beneficial.
According to the Mayo Clinic, red wine contains antioxidants that may help prevent heart disease. It appears that moderation is essential to its health advantages. If you’re not a drinker, don’t worry. Cardiologists do not recommend that you start drinking alcohol to gain heart benefits, especially since overconsumption of any alcohol can be harmful to your body.
Dr. Terrie Gibson of INTEGRIS investigates whether a little red wine may benefit the heart.
Can red wine be healthy?
Regarding health advantages, red wine outperforms white wine since it has more significant antioxidants, called polyphenols, which fight cancer and heart disease. When it comes to heart health, resveratrol is the star antioxidant. Resveratrol is a type of polyphenol found in grapes’ skin.
According to Dr. Gibson, “It’s conceivable that resveratrol has cardioprotective properties. Resveratrol may help protect blood vessel walls from oxidative damage.”
Resveratrol has been shown to benefit blood vessel health. Apart from increasing blood vessel strength and lowering “bad” cholesterol while preventing blood clots, resveratrol has been found to have several additional health benefits. However, the evidence is conflicting. Some studies have shown no real benefit from resveratrol in heart disease prevention.
“There is some doubt about the cardio protective impact of resveratrol,” Dr. Gibson adds. “Some studies have shown that to benefit from resveratrol, at least 2000 mg per day must be consumed. In contrast, supplements contain 250 to 500 mg, whereas red wine contains 12.41 mg, which means you would have to drink 40 liters of wine a day to get 500 mg.”
Wine, however, is not the only way to get resveratrol. Grapes and the skin of grapes are two common dietary sources. Your body may obtain antioxidants from eating grapes or grape skins. Red and purple grape juice also has resveratrol and may have the same heart-healthy benefits as a glass of red wine.
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The Alcohol Dilemma
However, some health professionals warn that the damage induced by any beverage, even red wine, may outweigh the benefits and urge people not to drink any amount of alcohol.
Doctors see more patients and younger persons with signs of acute liver disease linked to alcohol consumption. According to a study published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse in January, the number of alcohol-related fatalities per year has risen by two since 1999.
“Wine isn’t for everyone. Those who do not consume alcohol should not start doing so for heart health reasons. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb, drinking too much wine is detrimental to one’s heart. More than one glass per day for women or two glasses per day for men is excessive in general.” says Dr. Gibson
“Red wine has been shown in studies to improve blood flow and reduce inflammation,” she adds. “It will only work if consumed in moderation regularly over time, and most importantly, it must be used with a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise and a diet rich in whole foods like fruits and vegetables, olive oil, fish, with limited red meat and processed food.”
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Wine can be harmful to one’s health when consumed excessively, especially if one does not live a healthy lifestyle. Drinking more than the advised amount of alcohol has been linked to liver disease, cancer, diabetes, heart failure, and other illnesses.
If you already drink red wine, do so in moderation. In moderation, for healthy people, this means:
- Up to one drink a day for women of all ages.
- Up to one drink a day for men older than age 65.
- Up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and younger.
“Don’t save a week’s worth of drinks just to drink in one day. Women should consume one alcoholic beverage each day, while males should consume two. If you choose to drink wine in moderation, make sure it doesn’t interact with any medicines you’re taking.” Dr. Gibson advises against it.
