Apart from just enjoying drinking a few glasses of wine there is even more good news. Or should I say old news? http://www.drnorrie.info/html/article_winechronology.html As a matter of fact I use this all the time as a very good excuse: Drinking wine is healthy! As some websites say; world’s oldest documented man-made medicine.
I googled it a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised with a lot of good news. Many, many studies have “indicated” that drinking wine (Or any alcohol.) can improve your health in several different ways. There were not many who would claim that drinking IS better for your health but many would “suggest” that you would live longer if you drink 2 or 3 glasses per day. (Not 21 on Saturday evening!) I can understand that it is controversial to encourage people to drink and everybody should do what they believe is right.
“The ‘French paradox’ is the observation that although the French don’t eat a healthy diet, they show much reduced rates of coronary heart disease when compared with northern European nations such as the UK and Germany. The most popular explanation has been that the relatively high consumption of alcohol, and in particular wine, by the French acts to protect them from heart disease. Of course it is not possible to prove this.”
Again, this is all not really new news. In 1819 Samuel Black noted that there was a difference between heart disease rates between France and Ireland.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/11/04/ije.dyr138.full
Probably because of other downsides caused by too much drinking, which obviously can be serious, the studies are not very well ventilated to the general public. Which is understandable because practically all studies point to other possible causes for the better health of the wine drinker. Better educated, wealthier, healthier diet etc.
If you want to read more about it, here are 2 other links. Jack Keller has probably the largest website about making wine at home. I am not really a big fan but there is a lot of knowledge there.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/health.asp
“PubMed comprises more than 23 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.”
Here you can search for example on wine health benefits.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
Please note that I know nothing more than what I have read and that there are also studies that indicate the exact opposite of what is stated above. I have decided that I believe in the benefits and have a few drinks every day. Which apparently is even also the smart thing to do.
Hans
