July 20: According to Ms. Lamuela-Ravintos, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Gastronomy at the University of Barcelona, moderate wine consumption is not associated with weight gain, while revealing new evidence showing that in fact, red wine can help you burn calories and when drunk with meals, it also offers a range of health benefits
Don’t give up wine when looking to lose weight – it may help you shed the kilos- that was the message from the professor of nutrition during a recent webinar organised by wine in moderation.
Addressing the audience online, Ms. Rosa M. Lamuela-Ravintos addressed the issue of Wine and Weight Management. The professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Gastronomy at the University of Barcelona, has shown that moderate wine consumption is not associated with weight gain, while revealing new evidence to show that red wine can help you burn calories. When drunk during meals, it also offers a range of health benefits.
Using evidence from a Brazilian Study considering the timing and type of alcohol consumption and the Metabolic syndrome (a medical term for a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity), she showed that moderate wine consumption had a protective effect in terms of reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes when drunk with meals, but a neutral effect when drunk outside the meals.
The study, which involved more than 14,000 participants, states: Drinking predominantly wine, which occurred mostly with meals, was significantly related to a lower syndrome prevalence; drinking predominantly beer, most notably when outside of meals and in larger quantity, was frequently associated with a greater prevalence, according to The Drinks Business.
She also told the audience that wine contains an array of beneficial minerals, vitamins and polyphenols. It is a misnomer to say wine has empty calories. She said that there was an increasing proportion of the world’s population which was classified as obese- a condition reached if you have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher.
BMI is calculated by using a person's height and weight. The formula is BMI = kg/m2 where kg is a person's weight in kilograms and m2 is one’s height in meters squared. A BMI of 25.0 or more is overweight, while the healthy range is 18.5 to 24.9. The BMI of 25-30 is considered overweight and if it is less than 25 the person is normal or underweight.
“Every year, we notice that these people of normal weight are decreasing while those with obesity is increasing. This is a matter of concern, especially among children,” she said, adding that “the problem of obesity is that it is a disease which gets worse with obesity, resulting in type 2 diabetes -one of the worst diseases, along with heart disease. It is also associated with ‘physiological problems.’
Unfortunately, the combination of increased obesity and the feeling that alcoholic beverages provide “empty” calories, led to the elimination of wine from a weight-loss diet.
Talking about the incidence of obesity and cardiovascular disease risk among wine drinkers, she said that initially she relied on the results of a study called PREDIMED (Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea)- a pioneering dietary pathway that focused on the long-term effects of a Mediterranean diet among nearly 7,500 random participants, the results of which were published in 2013.
After looking at different items from the study, she observed that the marked wine drinkers ate no healthier food than those who didn’t. However, those who drank wine had lower heart rates and lower body mass index (BMI) when energy expenditure was similar to the teetotalers- those who abstained.
This was true for those who drank very little (1-6 units per week), and those who consumed more than 14 units per week. But the results were better among moderate wine drinkers, who drank 7-14 units of wine at every week.
Subhash Arora
Once again, here is a Study that validates the Golden Rule by delWine propagated for the last 17 years-drink quality wine, preferably red wine and preferably with food. Men should limit their intake to 2 glasses a day while women should stick to one glass due to an otherwise increased chance of breast cancer which can be cancelled out if they take folates regularly. Please consult your progressive doctor for medical advice in your specific case-editor
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