Wine, women, and heart disease

It’s enough to make wine connoisseurs raise a toast. Current medical research seems to indicate that moderate wine consumption may actually benefit your health. It’s been known to potentially decrease the likelihood of heart disease, and in a recent issue of the medical journal Neurology, Danish researchers report that wine may also decrease one’s chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

But that information only raises more questions. Red or white? How much? And is it any different for women than it is for men?

Monterey physician Martin Lipp provides some insight in a book he co-authored with David N. Whitten, M.D. — To Your Health: Two Physicians Explore the Health Benefits of Wine (HarperCollins West, 1994).

As Lipp reports in the chapter titled“ Women and Wine,” “Women who enjoy light, regular wine consumption achieve up to a 40-percent reduction in mortality due to heart attacks, by far the leading cause of death among all women in the United States.”

The explanation for this benefit, which is stronger with red wine, is twofold. The lipids in red wine help raise “good” cholesterol (HDL) and lower “bad” cholesterol (LDL), thereby helping to reduce the chances of hardening of the arteries.

In addition, resveratrol in red wine acts like an antioxidant, protecting against heart damage. Wine also includes nutrients such as boron (good for bone health) and possible cancer preventives such as anthocyanidins and tannins.

“Is wine without risk?” asks Lipp.“No, but nothing’s without risk. Fifteen hundred people a year die on bicycles.” He writes, “While some people develop what doctors have termed ‘idiosyncratic reactions’ and develop palpitations or cardiac irregularities after drinking red wine
(or other alcoholic beverages), this response seems to differ with individuals, and does not represent a risk for the population in general. Obviously, people who know that wine makes their heart beat rapidly or irregularly will wish to avoid it.”

Those with addictions to alcohol or other health concerns related to alcohol consumption should avoid it altogether.

For women who have weighed such risks, and for whom wine is part of a healthy lifestyle that includes maintaining reasonable body weight, proper nutrition, exercise, and complete avoidance of cigarettes, one critical question remains: How much is a moderate amount?

“There’s a lot of cultural variation,” says Lipp. In the United States, the recommended limit for a woman weighing 130 pounds might be one glass of wine a day. In the United Kingdom, twice that amount might be considered acceptable.