What is healthier grape or red wine?

[Fernando Gabriel]

What is healthier grape or red wine?

Edited July 22, 2020 by Fernando Gabriel

[mccoy]

Grapes, unless you are glucose-intolerant.

[Mike41]

Hmmm....that’s very very debatable. Depends. People with heart disease benefit significantly from red wine with meals. Moderation is critical of course, but the combination of polyphenols in red wine and alcohol are a one two punch against cardiovascular risk. 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-018-0309-5

Edited July 22, 2020 by Mike41

[mccoy]

Mike, since Fernando did not cite quantities, I had to be cautious!

[Mike41]

McCoy I certainly agree with your caution! Alcohol is a very dicey choice! Self control is obliterated in many of us when alcohol hits the brain!

[drewab]

Grapes for sure. Having said that, I probably have 6 drinks per year on average (all of which are red wine).

https://nutritionstudies.org/alcohol-16-reasons-to-rethink-your-drink/

[Ron Put]

40 minutes ago, drewab said:

Grapes for sure.

Alcohol by itself appears to provide cardiovascular benefits.  I recall a study which noted that as one ages, the benefits diminish, and after 50 or 60 the negatives begin to outweigh the positives.

[Fernando Gabriel]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:33 AM, mccoy said:

Mike, since Fernando did not cite quantities, I had to be cautious!

The maximum I took was about 2 cans of beer and I became normal .That year when I drank 100 ml of wine I could barely pay attention in college it took me about 2 days to get back to normal but I won't continue because I can get addicted so I prefer avocado,yogurt or an intelligence supplement.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Fernando Gabriel

[Mike41]

Here is research on this as about as good as your going to get. Best to abstain for sure if you cannot stay at two drinks or less. I would add with a meal.

https://www.onlinejacc.org/content/70/8/913?sso=1&sso_redirect_count=1&access_token=
 

Heavy drinkers had an increased risk of mortality due to all causes (HR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.21 to 1.38) and cancer (HR: 1.86; 95% CI: 1.66 to 2.08) in the initial model, although the estimates were attenuated after adjustment for additional confounders. There was no association between heavy drinking and CVD mortality in each model. In addition, the exclusion of participants with physician-diagnosed diseases had little effect on risk estimates (Online Table 1). We also performed a sensitivity analysis after multiple imputations for all variables with missing values, and we obtained similar results (data not shown).

In the stratified analyses (Online Table 2), light or moderate drinking was associated with a lower risk of all-cause, CVD, and heart disease mortality in both men and women. Heavy drinking was associated with risk of all-cause and cancer-specific mortality in men but not in women. The protective effect of light or moderate drinking on all-cause and cause-specific mortality was more pronounced in older adults (≥60 years of age) than in middle-aged adults (40 to 59 years of age). However, there was no significant association in young adults (18 to 39 years of age). Furthermore, the protective effect of light or moderate drinking on mortality was more pronounced in never and former smokers, but there was limited beneficial effect in current smokers

Edited July 24, 2020 by Mike41

[Mike41]

11 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Alcohol by itself appears to provide cardiovascular benefits.  I recall a study which noted that as one ages, the benefits diminish, and after 50 or 60 the negatives begin to outweigh the positives.

Based on the above study it’s the opposite of what you say. Think about it! It makes sense. If moderate/ lite alcohol consumption lowers CVD and Diabetes it probably also lowerS dementia ( some research suggests this) as most cases are related to plaque build up. Hence the more vulnerable older population gains the most benefit whereas the youngest gain none and in fact do worse!

Edited July 24, 2020 by Mike41

[Ron Put]

7 hours ago, Mike41 said:

Based on the above study it’s the opposite of what you say.

Mike, the studies on this are all over the place, so take every single one with a grain of salt.

Here is some of what the folks from Harvard Medical School say on the subject:

Alcohol and your health: Is none better than a little?

My take on these new studies is this: if you don’t like to drink alcohol, this latest research gives you no “medicinal” reason to start. But, if you drink lightly (and responsibly) and you have no health problems related to it, this study and other recent research is reassuring.

Clearly there are good reasons to discourage excessive alcohol consumption, driving drunk, and other avoidable alcohol-related trouble. But is “zero consumption” really where we should be aiming? I’m not so sure. I think it’s much more complicated than that.

----

Is red wine actually good for your heart?

Although some studies suggest wine is better for the heart than beer or hard liquor, others do not, according to a review article about wine and cardiovascular health in the Oct. 10, 2017, issue of Circulation. That’s not surprising, says Dr. Mukamal. “In many cases, it’s difficult to tease out the effect of drinking patterns from specific types of alcoholic beverages,” he explains. For example, people who drink wine are more likely do so as part of a healthy pattern, such as drinking a glass or two with a nice meal. Those habits — rather than their choice of alcohol —may explain their heart health.

Also, the French Paradox may not be so paradoxical after all. Many experts now believe that factors other than wine may account for the observation, such as lifestyle and dietary differences, as well as earlier underreporting of heart disease deaths by French doctors. What’s more, Dr. Mukamal notes, heart disease rates in Japan are lower than in France, yet the Japanese drink a lot of beer and clear spirits, but hardly any red wine.