Non-guilty pleasures dept: Evidence of wine’s health benefits mounts

This is the story about how a young doctor learned an amusing lesson from a patient, who would be me.

It happened several years ago, when I went for an annual checkup. My regular doctor was busy, so a young assistant saw me. Before the breathing and the stethoscoping started, we sat together for the usual health-related Q&A. The conversation got interesting when we came to the part about what substances I ingest. It went something like this:

Doctor: Do you take any illegal drugs?

Me: No.

Doctor: Do you drink alcohol?

Me: Yes.

At that point, he stopped writing on his clipboard and looked at me inquisitively.

Me: I like to drink wine with dinner. I guess I picked that up from my father.

Doctor: How is your father?

Me: He’s dead.

Doctor (looking like he was ready to pounce): And how old was he?

Me: Ninety-three.

Realizing there was little to pounce on, the doctor said something akin to, “Oh,” and then proceeded to the remaining questions.

I can’t say whether or not wine contributed to my father’s longevity. But in the years that have followed that medical checkup, there have been a variety of reports about wine’s health benefits, leading me to suspect the young doctor probably doesn’t look so askance any more when a patient admits to wine drinking.

The evidence of wine’s salutary effect continues to mount.

Hippocrates, father of medicine, as envisioned by a Byzantine artist.

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From: University of Virginia Health Sciences Library

The latest report is a review published today of the book “The Red Wine Diet” by scientist Roger Corder, “who insists that drinking red wine regularly is good for just about everything that might ail you, including heart disease, diabetes and dementia.”

A cardiovascular expert and professor of therapeutics at London’s William Harvey Research Institute, Corder doesn’t deny the destructiveness of alcohol abuse. But he extols the value of moderate wine use, drawing on his own research and historical documentation, including writings of the likes of the 5^th century B.C. Greek physician Hippocrates, who prescribed wine as an antiseptic and remedy for other ailments.

Corder, according to the report, even recommends specific wines, including: “Malbec Riserva from Altos Las Hormigas in Argentina, Chateau Montaiguillon and especially those French wines made with tannat grapes in Madiran. The best U.S. wines rated are Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Reserve from California and Matthew Cellars Red from Washington state.”

Earlier this month, Britain’s Times Online reported that patients suffering from a rare disease would be among the first to try a new drug based on the “magic ingredient” in red wine.

The chemical “could lead to a whole family of new drugs with powerful effects against the diseases of ageing,” the report said, adding that a version of the chemical is being tried in India for use against diabetes, “and newer versions hundreds of times more powerful are in the pipeline.”

In February, Dutch researchers told the American Heart Association’s 47^th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention that “drinking a little alcohol every day, especially wine, may be associated with an increase in life expectancy,” according to the meeting reports: 

“The researchers found that a light intake of alcohol (on average less than one glass per day) was associated with a lower rate of cardiovascular death and death from all causes. When compared to spirits and beer, consumption of small amounts of wine, about a half a glass a day, was associated with the lowest levels of all-cause and cardiovascular deaths.”

Who knows whether other findings someday will rebut these reports? But for the time being at least, you shouldn’t feel intimidated telling your physician about your fondness for wine. He may even approve.