The proposal to make wine more accessible may open up a new avenue for improving our health. Although the therapeutic aspects of wine have been recorded for eons - even ayurvedic texts contain such references - because of its alcoholic base, wine has never been put in the same good-for-you category as, say, fruit and vegetables. That kind of thinking is changing as more and more evidence turns up in favour of the fermented stuff. Take a look at all the good things research has discovered that wine can do for you.

Protect your ticker:

It is now an accepted fact, based on results from several studies, that moderate alcohol consumption decreases the risk of heart disease by 40 to 70 per cent.

Antioxidants like resveratrol in red wine are believed to act like scavengers, protecting the heart from inflammation caused by reactive particles called "free radicals," which can damage healthy cells. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 reported that men who drank 1 to 2 glasses of wine, 3 to 7 days a week had less risk of having a heart attack. Resveratrol and two other antioxidants (saponin and tyrosol) in red wine have been also shown to reduce LDL "bad" cholesterol levels and boost HDL "good" cholesterol, which helps unclog your arteries. Resveratrol also has anti-thrombotic properties - that is, it prevents platelets (blood cells) from sticking to each other and forming blood clots.


A glass of wine a day could help you maintain your razor-sharp memory as you get older. When researchers gave memory quizzes to women in their 70s, those who had one drink every day scored much better than those who drank less or not at all. Again wine's anticlotting and anti inflammatory properties is believed to be responsible for this effect. Cognitive decline has been linked to blood vessel inflammation. In addition, resveratrol in red wine may protect against nerve cell death induced by alcohol and other oxidative agents. A 1997 French study indicated that red wine consumption was associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Whittle your waist

Think adding a glass a day will wreck your diet? It won't. Studies find that people who drink wine daily have lower body mass than those who indulge occasionally; moderate wine drinkers have narrower waists and less abdominal fat than people who drink liquor. Wine, it seems, may encourage your body to burn extra calories for as long as 90 minutes after you down a glass. "Alcohol may increase the metabolic rate," says S. Goya Wannamethee, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London who focuses on heart health. "So having a drink with a meal could result in more calories burned rather than stored as fat." Why might wine work this way, but not, say, vodka? 'Wine drinkers may take their alcohol more frequently with meals," Wannamethee says, "and the effects of alcohol may be different when consumed with food."


Alcohol, particularly wine, seems to act as a kind ofliquid antibiotic. In one British study of more than 10,000 people, those who drank roughly a glass a day reduced by 11 per cent their risk of infection by Helicobacter pylori bacteria, a major cause of gastritis, ulcers, and stomach cancers. As little as half a glass may also guard against food poisoning caused by germs like salmonella when people are exposed to contaminated food, according to a Spanish study.

Another Spanish study demonstrated that red wine decreased the spread of melanoma to the lungs. And researchers at the State University of New York showed that one glass of wine per week could help prevent colon cancer and reduce the risk of prostate cancer.


First, it is thought to minimize the genetic mutations that lead to cancer.

Second, resveratrol prevents the formation of new blood vessels that 'feed' cancer cells.


Resveratrol has properties similar to the female sex hormone, estrogen, which is why red wine may protect against estrogen depletion and benefit older women in conditions brought on by menopause, such as ovarian cancer, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease.

When Australian researchers recently compared 696women with ovarian cancer and 786 cancer-free women, they found that roughly one glass of wine a day seemed to reduce the risk of the disease by as much as 50 per cent. Earlier research at the University of Hawaii produced similar findings. More evidence: In a recent University of Michigan study, a red wine compound helped kill ovarian cancer cells in a test tube.

A little bit of alcohol also seems to be good for your bones. On average, women who drink moderately seem to have higher bone mass than abstainers. Alcohol appears to boost estrogen levels, which is helpful, skeletally speaking, because the hormone seems to slow the body's destruction of old bone more than it slows the production of new bone. "Alcohol appears to act on the skeleton in a manner similar to that of many drugs that have been developed to treat osteoporosis," says Russell Turner, PhD, professor of nutrition and exercise science at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

The drugs, of course, get the job done more effectively. But then, they don't set off a nice dinner nearly as well.


Premenopausal women who drink one glass of wine a day gain some protection against diabetes: They are 40 per cent less likely than women who don't drink to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a large, 10-year study by Harvard Medical School researchers. The reasons aren't clear, but in diabetic patients, wine seems to reduce insulin resistance.


All of these protective benefits might add up to a longer life, research finds. A 2003 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, for example, showed that moderate consum- ption of red wine (1-2 glasses/ day) was associated with a lower mortality risk.

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