Winers Live Longer
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in News
I saw this at Doug’s place and had to share it.
Dutch researchers followed 1,373 men for more than four decades, noting their eating and drinking habits. Men who had about 20 grams of alcohol daily — equivalent to a half a glass of wine — had 2 1/2 years added to their life expectancy at age 50, compared with men who didn’t drink at all, according to the research published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Men who consumed only wine had twice as much added longevity.Light alcohol intake was linked to lower cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and overall mortality in the study. Researchers had known that moderate drinking is tied to a lower risk of heart disease, possibly because of an increase in high density lipoprotein or so-called good cholesterol as well as a reduction in platelet clumping, making it more unlikely for clots to form. It is the first study to show that one kind of alcohol is superior to others in prolonging life, the researchers said.
Here’s my take on why these folks lived longer…
First off, many people underestimate the effects of stress on the body. And it can seriously add to your risk of all sorts of nasty diseases . Enter wine, which allows people to almost instantly relax after a glass or two. Think that has an effect on lowering stress? Definitely.
Second, wine is fermented grape juice that sits in big oak casks and has been bottled before it has a chance to turn into vinegar. I know I’m being a touch simplistic, but that’s really all it is. So given that’s essentially alcoholic fruit juice, there MUST be some healthy properties to it. Especially since vinegar is purported to have significant health benefits.
A 2006 study concluded that a test group of rats fed with acetic acid (the main component of vinegar) had “significantly lower values for serum total cholesterol and triacylglycerol”, among other health benefits. Rats fed vinegar or acetic acid have lower blood pressure than controls, although the effect has not been tested in humans. Reduced risk of fatal ischemic heart disease was observed among participants in a trial who ate vinegar and oil salad dressings frequently.
So yes, a completely unscientific opinion about why wine could be healthy, but there it is nonetheless. :-)
This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 am
Organic Grape Juice has the same effect without the joviality or the headaches.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Unless you’re asian… then you’ll probably be dooming yourself to a painful death.