European researchers have confirmed that one glass of wine a day, with a meal, is beneficial to your heart.
A multi-centre study looked at data from more than 1200 participants in a major scientific epidemiological study on the effects of the Mediterranean diet on cardiovascular health.
Professor Ramon Estruch, from the University of Barcelona, in Spain, said their study analysed a biomarker of wine intake, specifically, tartaric acid, present in grapes.
Professor Estruch said they found light and moderate consumption of wine was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular complications.
He said there was no doubt excessive alcohol consumption had serious health consequences, but the effects of moderate and responsible wine consumption were still the subject of debate.
“The results of this study should help to place moderate wine consumption in its rightful place as an element of the Mediterranean diet, considered to be the healthiest in the world.”
Professor Estruch said part of the debate about the health effects of moderate alcoholic consumption, and wine in particular, was due to conflicting results of studies that had pointed to a protective effect of wine, while others had found no such effect.
He said these differences could be explained by possible errors in wine consumption records.
“Epidemiological studies assessing the role of wine in the rate of cardiovascular events are often based on self-reported information on wine consumption, which are subject to measurement errors due to inaccurate recall or biased perceptions about the social desirability of drinking alcoholic beverages.”
Professor Estruch said, in response to this problem, the researchers in this study measured wine consumption by means of food intake frequency surveys, which they confirmed with an objective biomarker i.e. the concentration found in urine of tartaric acid, a molecule produced mainly in grapes and rarely synthesized by other plant species.
He said analysis of the data showed that light wine consumption, between one glass per week and less than half a glass per day, reduced the risk of having a cardiovascular complication by 38 percent, but this reduction reached 50 percent when consumption was moderate i.e. between half a glass and one glass per day.
“However, when consumption exceeds one drink per day, the protective effect disappears (and) when we talk about moderate wine consumption, it is always with meals, never between meals.”
Read the full study: Urinary tartaric acid as a biomarker of wine consumption and cardiovascular risk: the PREDIMED trial.
