WELLNESS
TEXT
AMY SELBACH
WHINE
OR
WINE?
Amy Selbach is the owner of Taut
Body Studio in Village Market. She
is a holistic health coach, personal
trainer and Pilates instructor and
creator of the Taut Body program that
has helped hundreds of her clients
lose weight and change their health
completely. She also leads life-design
and business incubator workshops for
entrepreneurs.
Details at www.tautbody.com or
email [email protected]
Is drinking a glass of wine a day as
healthy as we’ve been made to believe?
I’d like to talk about a little underemphasized word in the health world
called ‘moderation’. Every topic
related to health seems to be linked
to an extreme magic bullet that can
fix any ailment overnight. While we
would all love to believe the hype
that dark chocolate and red wine are
antioxidant super-food heroes, the
reality may be quite different. This
leads to another under-discussed
topic in health and wellness media
called ‘scientific fact’. Spoiler alert;
this article may be a bit of a buzzkill
for people who have pantries full
of wine and chocolate, eat copious
amounts, and consider it part of their
health regime.
The reason red wine has become
a media darling in the health world
54.
is largely because it contains a
polyphenol called reservatrol that
has antioxidant properties. In animal
studies, it has “been linked” to heart
health and is said to have antiinflammatory properties. However,
human studies are limited and pretty
inconclusive. You can find studies
that loosely support both sides of
the argument. Additionally, wines
have a lot of variance when it comes
to the quantity of reservatrol they
contain, many with insignificant
doses to impact health.
The inCHIANTI study (a 16-yearlong look at the blood, urine and
dietary questionnaires of hundreds
of people living in the Italian winemaking region of Chianti) recently
found that resveratrol wasn’t as-
sociated with disease or lifespan, to
the horror and devastation of wine
lovers everywhere. But that doesn’t
mean red wine is unhealthy—just
that the famed ingredient resveratrol
may not deserve all the credit.
Many studies have shown that
light alcohol consumption in general
has been associated with lower heart
disease and lower mortality rates.
Alcohol itself in light doses raises
good cholesterol and helps with
anticlotting. Since red wine does
have antioxidants and certain known
health benefits, why not make it the
drink of choice.
So what does this mean for white
wine drinkers? Not much if reservatrol is not the connection but a lot if
it is, as the skins of white grapes contain far les; white wine is typically
made only from pulp, but some studies say it has its own benefits. White
wine has two strong antioxidants of
its own, tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol,
also found in olive oil but not in red
wine, and are also linked to heart
health and low blood pressure.
What is well documented are the
deleterious effects of the consumption of excessive alcohol and what
is doesn’t delete is your waistline!
Wine and any alcohol in excess
can lead to cancer, liver damage,
digestive problems, bone loss, heart
problems, and the list continues.
This leads us right to the old adage
“everything in moderation.”