According to the WHO, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Yet many serious studies suggest that moderate wine consumption can lead to longer life expectancy. Alexander Lupersböck summarises the latest results.
The debate is currently raging: Is every drop of wine harmful to health, or is it the dose that makes the poison? Can moderate wine consumption in combination with a balanced diet and sufficient exercise even have a positive influence on health and life expectancy? Or is it just that giving up our glass of wine makes us age healthier and die happier?
The extremely different categorisation of what "risk-free alcohol consumption" means in the individual EU states makes it easier for radical opponents of alcohol to demonise it in general. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has now joined in this chorus. It no longer accepts the old adage that "a glass of red wine a day is good for the heart" and argues that any amount of alcohol, even the smallest, increases the risk of cancer. However, people do not only fall ill and die of cancer. And in other areas, the balance sheet for wine does not look so bad, as current studies prove.
A meta-study by the renowned Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, published in the prestigious journal "Nature", has analysed the relationship between alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease and re-evaluated the existing data. The researchers of the IHME project "Global Burden of Disease" (GBD) analysed results from 122 scientific studies published between 1970 and 2021. According to the authors, this huge amount of data clearly shows that moderate alcohol consumption of up to 50 grams per day significantly reduces the risk of heart disease and heart attacks - as well as the probability of death. The experts agree that moderate consumption of wine in combination with a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle can have positive effects on health.
Compared to teetotallers, moderate wine consumption even reduces mortality. This could also reduce the social costs of heart disease, as those who survive a heart attack become chronic patients. This generates considerable costs for society. However, mortality increases dramatically with increasing wine consumption.
It has not been scientifically proven that giving up wine makes people age healthier and live longer.
123rfThe scientific online portal Oeno one also recently published an article by medical professors Erik Skovenberg from Denmark and Prof. R. Curtis Ellison from the USA, which examines coronary mortality in Roseto in the USA, a town inhabited by immigrants of Italian origin. Until the early 1960s, the inhabitants still ate a traditional Italian diet and drank home-produced wine, but in the following decades they adapted to the American style of eating: They hardly drank any wine and used very little olive oil. As a result, the cholesterol levels of the inhabitants rose dramatically. The result: mortality from heart disease doubled.
Attilio Giacosa, Professor of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy and President of the Institute of Wine, Nutrition and Health Research (IRVAS) in Italy, confirms the results: "Italian and international epidemiological studies have already shown extensively that a habitual and moderate consumption of wine during adulthood and in combination with the right diet, such as the Mediterranean diet, is not harmful but rather beneficial." And he brings another aspect into play that has only recently been proven: "Moderate wine consumption as part of a Mediterranean diet can contribute to general well-being, not only by increasing longevity but also by reducing the risks of cognitive decline." And, not to be underestimated: Wine is usually drunk in company and creates positive social experiences.
This is precisely the result of a study conducted by Iowa State University, which analysed 1,800 Britons over a period of ten years and surveyed their eating habits in detail. The result: people who regularly drank moderate amounts of red wine and ate cheese and lamb once a week were significantly less likely to suffer from dementia diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. The conclusion was that choosing the right foods could prevent the disease and cognitive decline altogether.
A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which analysed health data from three generations of participants, also follows the same line. According to the study, the flavonol quercetin contained in red wine, among other things, helps to minimise the symptoms of frailty in old age. However, the authors of the study also recommend "exercising, eating a healthy diet and never drinking more than one glass of wine a day."
One thing seems clear from all the studies: the most important thing is a healthy, balanced diet with little meat and animal fat and plenty of exercise. No study has been able to identify one glass of wine a day as the sole trigger for health problems, even if some institutions communicate this. However, it is also clear that only moderate consumption can have a positive effect on people's long-term health.