Is Wine Healthy?

How much wine per week is heathy?

If I had asked this question just a few years ago, most people would likely have responded that one glass of wine per day was relatively heathy and safe. Some would even say their doctor recommended a glass of wine per day to those patients who enjoy wine and are watching their heart health. But recently, the notion of wine as “healthy” has come under question. In fact, the headlines now read ‘Alcohol is not healthy in any amount.’

So where does that leave wine lovers like us? As I went down the rabbit hole of researching this topic I found some common threads:

1. There is a global neo-temperance movement with the goal to reduce or eliminate all alcohol consumption. This movement is rooted in healthy lifestyles, longevity, and elimination of the social ills related to alcohol abuse. Look at Orginasation of Good Templars (now known as Movendi International) and the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria.

2. Most of the research used to denote the ill effects of alcohol abuse are rooted in just that—alcohol abuse. When you drill down into the data of moderate to light drinker studies (1-2 glasses of wine per day), especially wine, the data gets murkier and inconclusive. You see, moderate to light wine drinkers tend to already have healthy lifestyles when it comes to eating and exercise thus a better health status to start with. That leaves researchers, who have a deliberate bias on the ill effects of alcohol, to place a heavier emphasis on heavy drinkers to ‘tease out’ the ‘alcohol only’ effects on health. This is, at best, flawed science.

3. There are factual heathy chemical components to wine – especially polyphenols and a myriad of other antioxidant compounds that can lead to better health outcomes. Recent research into the gut microbiome has found red wine drinkers tend to have higher concentrations of ‘good’ bacteria as to their non-drinking research subjects when looking at this one difference in diet. Combine polyphenols and antioxidants along with the stress relieving aspect of a glass of wine after a tough day and merge all of that with the beneficial socialization effect of drinking (we tend to enjoy a glass of wine with others) and the result is something worth pursuing. Is this not a life well lived? Is this not ‘better’ health?

Of course, everyone has their own unique medical conditions and general health to consider when making a choice to have a glass of wine (not recommended if on morphine!). However, a general all-encompassing statement that any amount of alcohol is bad for you seems like a gross overgeneralization and ignores all the positives of sensible consumption of wine and millennia of lived experience around a healthy wine culture.

For an excellent current article on this topic, I suggest Esther Moblie’s recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The U.S. could soon declare alcohol unsafe. The wine industry says the process is rigged (Aug. 13, 2024)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/anti-alcohol-dietary-guidelines-19595032.php