Wine’s Integral Role in Mediterranean Diet Confirmed
July 15, 2024 – The Mediterranean Diet has been popular for several decades but the good news is that moderate wine consumption as a part of the diet, is critical to benefiting fully from its healthy effects.
The diet is based on the foods consumed by the inhabitants of Southern Spain, Italy, Crete and other Mediterranean countries consisting of vegetables, legumes, nuts, cheese, yoghurt, fish, red meat, olive oil and wine. The diet is credited with low incidences of heart disease and other illnesses.
As noted in our recent article Neo-Prohibitionists and the World Health Organization are on the march, claiming that absolutely no amount of alcohol is safe for anyone to consume. However, research is confirming there is clear evidence that moderate wine drinking is beneficial especially as a part of the Mediterranean diet. This was documented by Felicity Carter in Meininger’s International earlier this year.
In 1992, the Foundation for Wine and Nutrition Research (FIVIN) was created in Barcelona to study the impact of wine on health. It is a non-profit that is funded by the Spanish and Catalan governments as well as the wine industry.
Since 2023 FIVIN has been led by Professor Ramon Estruch whose background is fascinating. He had spent three decades studying the effect of alcohol on the heart and brain and was all too familiar with deleterious results of alcohol consumption on health as well as socially. However, at the same time he also observed that people who consumed alcohol moderately, were actually healthier than those who drank too much and those who didn’t drink at all. He wanted to find out why.
Alcohol was included as part of a program looking at the effects of key foods on atherosclerosis. Professor Estruch compared alcohol and wine and found that ethanol in low doses had positive effects but that wine was even better. He attributed this to wine’s polyphenols. Alcohol appears to help the body absorb the polyphenols in wine, olive oil and vegetables and in the words of Prof. Estruch “20% of the effects of the Mediterranean diet have to be attributed to wine”. From 2003 to 2010 the Spanish government funded a trial headed by Prof. Estruch, called Predimed, to study the Mediterranean diet’s effect on heart disease in high-risk individuals. The takeaway which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was that following a traditional Mediterranean diet you can decrease cardiovascular death by 30%, according to Prof. Estruch.
Other important points made by Prof. Estruch are that wine in moderation can be healthy; that wine consumed in moderation as a part of the Mediterranean diet is even better; and that drinking alcohol, say vodka, outside of a meal does not have the same effect as drinking wine with a meal. Nor is abstaining all week and binging over the weekend a healthy alternative.
Further studies on moderate wine consumption continue in Spain. In the meantime, a nice Mediterranean style meal and a glass or two of red wine sounds pretty good.
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