A weekly bottle of vino, when paired with a Mediterranean diet, could be as beneficial for your heart as statins, according to academic research. While some studies have suggested that wine can be good for the heart, others have warned that excessive consumption can be harmful.
Most research into the health effects of wine has relied on participants self-reporting their alcohol intake, which could lead to "prone to measurement errors", researchers noted. Therefore, academics decided to examine an "objective" indicator of wine consumption in urine by looking for levels of a chemical known as tartaric acid.
They used data from a study that measured the effects of a Mediterranean diet - rich in olive oil, vegetables, fruits, nuts and fish, and low in sweets or processed food and drink - on the health of older adults from a Mediterranean population at high risk of heart disease. The 1,232 participants not only filled out questionnaires about their food and drink intake but also provided urine samples at the beginning of the study and again one year later.
After four or five years of follow-up, there were 685 cases of heart disease, including heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease. According to the study, published in the European Heart Journal, people who drank three to 12 glasses of wine each month had a 38% lower risk of heart disease compared to those who drank less than one glass of wine a month.
