Although the reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure was modest, decreases of just 4 and 2 mm Hg have been associated with a 14 - 20 % reduction in heart disease and stroke, the researchers pointed out. “The daily consumption of de-alcoholised red wine could be useful for the prevention of low to moderate hypertension,” they concluded. Alcohol in a wine can be reduced or almost totally eliminated (up to 0.5% levels have been achieved).
Gemma Chiva-Blanch, who led the research, and her colleagues suspect that blood pressure improvements were due to the impact of polyphenols, a red wine component, on nitric oxide. The theory is that nitric oxide molecules help blood vessels relax, which allows better flow and more blood to reach the heart and other organs.
For the new study, Chiva-Blanch and her colleagues followed 67 men with diabetes or 3 or more cardiovascular risk factors. During the study, the men were all required to consume the same foods along with one of three drinks: about 300mL of red wine, 300mL of non-alcoholic red wine or 90 mL of gin. During the 12 week study, the men tried each diet/beverage combination for 4 weeks at a time.
The researchers determined that the standard red wine and its non-alcoholic counterpart contained equal amounts of polyphenols, an antioxidant which has been shown to decrease blood pressure.
Men who drank regular red wine saw minor reductions in blood pressure – too small, in fact, to be statistically significant. Those who drank gin with their meals saw no change in blood pressure. But men who drank non-alcoholic red wine saw a blood pressure decrease of about 6 mm Hg in systolic and 2 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure.
Chiva-Blanch and her colleagues concluded that their findings show that the alcohol in red wine actually weakens its ability to lower blood pressure.
The new study suggests that if you drink wine, red wine would be the healthiest choice, said Dr. Kelly Anne Spratt, a heart disease prevention specialist and a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, according to the report in NBC News. Still, Spratt said, “While there are those of us in cardiologies who believe in the benefits of red wine, we want to be wary.
e’re not going like gangbusters recommending people go out and start drinking. There are a lot of problems associated with drinking, like weight gain, cardiomyopathy, alcoholism, an increased breast cancer risk in women who consume two or more drinks a day.”
There have been dozens of studies with much higher number of subjects studied for much longer periods, evidencing that alcohol in moderation had positive benefits - the positive effects are generally more enhanced in red wine due to anti-oxidants, the fudging of figures by an Indo-American researcher for years, notwithstanding. The study appears to be convoluted and assumptive and in any case not peer-evaluated yet. In any case, delWine continues to recommend one glass for women and two for men on a regular basis. We never suggest non-drinkers to imbibe wine for health reasons though we strongly recommend drinking good wine in moderation if they do start drinking alcohol and are proponents of switching to wine or adding it to their portfolio as a food drink-editor |