Benefits of Drinking A Glass Of Wine

Sometimes, you want a glass of wine during a meal or maybe after a hard day’s work, but you don’t want to deal with the consequences of a hangover. Unfortunately, even drinking a single glass of wine can affect your body up to 24 hours after you drink it. Once you drink a glass, your body absorbs the alcohol and then moves quickly throughout your body. Most of it is absorbed by your stomach and small intestine with a small amount absorbed into your bloodstream. Your liver breaks down the alcohol at a rate of around one drink an hour, so by the morning that one drink should be finished processing.

Unfortunately, that’s not always the case as everyone processes alcohol the same way or at the same speed. Other factors can also affect its processing including how quickly you drank the glass and if you drank it on an empty stomach or not. Plus, if you only drink occasionally, your body will react differently than someone who drinks a couple of times a week. Even one glass of wine can affect your sleep as alcohol can cause sleep disturbance.

So is the hangover and potentially poor sleep quality worth it? For many, the answer is no. However, this doesn’t factor in the potential benefits of drinking a glass of wine. Of course, if you just don’t like to drink, there’s no need to force yourself. After all, there are plenty of negative consequences of drinking as well, so you’ll need to figure out if you think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

Boosts Antioxidants

You’ve probably heard before that drinking a glass of red wine every night can help boost your antioxidants. If you think you’ve heard that word before, you’d be right. It’s a substance that scientists research in great detail due to its ability to help prevent or slow damage caused by free radicals molecules. When left unchecked, these molecules can lead to a host of issues including heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Unfortunately, your body is constantly creating free radicals as they are produced whenever your body breaks down food. If you smoke or suffer from radiation poisoning, your body produces more.

There are a lot of different antioxidants including vitamin C and E, selenium, and carotenoids (beta-carotene, lutein, etc.) The antioxidants flavonoids and resveratrol  found in red wine fall under the polyphenol umbrella. These seem to be particularly effective in protecting cells and tissues against harm that can lead to cancer. Luckily, red wine is especially loaded with them.

Limit Atherosclerosis

According to the American Heart Association, a glass of wine can help prevent the buildup of plaque in your arteries. Unlike the plaque on your teeth, the plaque in your blood vessels occurs when fat (cholesterol) and calcium build up inside the lining of your artery walls. Over time, the buildup narrows the artery and blocks blood flow, which can lead to heart attacks.

Despite numerous studies, there’s still not enough data to actually say red wine actually limits atherosclerosis. While some research has found a connection, others have not, which could mean other factors outside of red wine consumption could play a role.

Increase Good Cholesterol

Not all cholesterol is created equal. There’s the cholesterol your doctor probably warns you about, the low-density lipoproteins (LDL), which can contribute to plaque buildup in your arteries. If your LDL levels are about 100 mg/dL you have high cholesterol. However, there’s also the ‘good’ cholesterol, also known as high-density lipoproteins. These help carry cholesterol from your blood to your liver for removal. These should be higher than 40 mg/dL for men and 50 mg/dL for women.

While no research has yet established a cause-and-effect link between drinking wine and better heart health, there have been studies that found an association between wine and lower risk of dying from heart disease. There’s also some studies that have linked  resveratrol with higher HDL levels, which lead to a reduction in ‘bad’ cholesterol. However, there’s debate about whether the antioxidant is really cardioprotective as well as how much you need to ingest to get the benefits.

Decreases Risk of Heart Disease

As you might expect, all of these factors can help your overall heart health. Higher levels of HDL means your body is transporting the bad cholesterol down to your liver instead of letting it attach and harden to your blood vessels. This in turn, means that you have better blood flow to your heart and body, which ultimately leads to a decreased risk of heart disease.

This benefit, however, can easily get overturned if you drink too much. Even one glass over the recommended amount can lead to serious issues and have the opposite effect you’re going for. 3 or more glasses of wine (or really any alcoholic beverage) can actually lead to an increased risk of heart disease as drinking can increase your risk of developing atrial fibrillation (a very fast heartbeat). To get the most out of your wine, you’ll want to stick to the recommended one glass for women and up to two glasses for men.

Moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages has been suggested to decrease the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in those who are already at risk by around 20 percent. It was also shown to reduce the risk for ischemic stroke by about 20 percent when compared to a control group. In this study, the benefits were associated with any type of alcoholic beverage. When studying red wine in particular, studies found that those who drank wine decreased their risk of developing atherosclerosis by 32 percent compared to the more modest 22 percent among beer drinkers.

Other Benefits of Drinking Wine

In addition to the above benefits, drinking wine can also lead to other positive benefits. People who drank red wine tended to have a greater diversity of flora in their gut, which can aid in overall digestion and absorption of nutrients. For many, drinking a glass of wine is also a great way to lower their stress and anxiety. A recent study found that resveratrol could offer protection from symptoms of depression and anxiety as it blocks the expression of an enzyme linked to stress.

Wine drinkers also tend to have a lower risk of developing diabetes and decreased the risk of developing gallstones. If you’ve never had a gallstone before, count yourself lucky as it can be incredibly painful. These hardened deposits of bile form in your gallbladder, a small organ that sits just above your liver.

Besides this, there’s some evidence that suggests drinking wine (specifically white wine) in moderation can also help prevent obesity. White wine contains antioxidants called epicatechin, quercetin, and resveratrol. All of these may help you burn fat and decrease inflammation commonly associated with obesity. As well, the inflammation fighting antioxidants also mean wine is great for dealing with chronic inflammation. 

Finally, if you’re hit with the flu, win can help boost your immune system when consumed in moderation. In fact, it can help develop immunity to fight against around 200 viruses, including the common cold and flu as it contains flavonoids, an antioxidant that combats viruses.

Problems with Binge Drinking

Unfortunately, binge drinking is a problem in the United States and is the most common, costly, and deadly pattern of excessive alcohol use. Binge drinking is a defined pattern of drinking where your blood alcohol content (BAC) is elevated above 0.08 g/dl. This generally happens when men consume 5 or more drinks or women consume 4 or more drinks in about two hours.

Around one in six adults binge drink about four times a month. Unsurprisingly, it’s most common among younger adults between the ages of 18-34. However, more than half of the total binge drinks are consumed by people over the age of 35.

Regardless of whether you’re drinking beer or wine, the health risks of binge drinking are serious. It can lead to short term side effects like:

• Dizziness

• Poor judgement

• Memory loss

• Vomiting

• Hangovers

• Slow reflexes

• Injury

It can also lead to more serious issues such as car accidents and potentially lethal alcohol poisoning if you drink too much. The side effects don’t stop there. Even a one-time binge drinking session can, lead to serious long term health problems such as:

• High blood pressure

• Stroke

• Heart Disease

• CirrhosisAlcohol use disorder

• Cancer 

And more. It also costs the country around $250 billion due to losses in workplace productivity, health care expenditures, and criminal justice costs. Cirrhosis is one of the more common diseases you can develop if you are a heavy drinker as your liver must work overtime to metabolize the alcohol. As the liver helps process the alcohol, the ethanol ends up damaging liver cells. Unfortunately, once you develop cirrhosis, the damage is irreversible.

Other Complications From Wine

Despite the potential benefits that wine might give, there are also plenty of negatives that come with it. While the antioxidants might help reduce your risk of developing heart disease, it seems to increase your chances of developing cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization found that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol is akin to smoking 10 cigarettes a week, increasing cancer risk by 1 percent and 1.4 percent in men and women respectively. For women, drinking wine can also increase the risk of developing breast cancer.

If you drink 3 bottles of wine a week, your risk of cancer development increases to 1.9 percent for men but jumps to 3.6 percent for women. The ethanol and acetaldehyde in alcoholic drinks are two substances that may cause human cancer. Luckily, the relationship is dose-dependent so the less you drink, the lower your risks.

Other complications include bacterial overgrowth in your gut, leading to sepsis that reaches the liver. It can also lead to pancreatitis as regular drinking weakens your immune system, leaving your body vulnerable to infections. Long-term drinking can also lead to an increased chance developing dementia later in life.

The Benefits Outweigh The Risks Of Drinking A Glass Of Wine

Over the years, there has been conflicting information on the health benefits of drinking a glass of wine, red or white. One year it’s good for you and then the following year there’s new studies that say it’s bad for you. So which is it? As always the truth tends to be a bit more complicated than you might read or hear on the news.

Are there benefits to drinking red wine? Yes. Are there drawbacks? Also, yes. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks of drinking alcohol. If you do plan on partaking in some wine, it’s best to drink in moderation. That means one glass (150 ml) for women and two glasses (300 ml) for men at most. Drinking this moderate amount can give you the health benefits while potentially decreasing the drawbacks. Still, abstaining from alcohol doesn’t increase your overall risks. More importantly, you should consider your overall diet and health. An unhealthy lifestyle can outweigh the benefits you could gain from drinking a daily glass of wine.

Shana Thompson is a full time professional writer and editor. Shana has worked extensively in the fields of content marketing, on-page and off-page SEO (guest posts, backlink acquisition), and creative writing. As an experienced pro content writer, Shana has worked on several magazines, publishing companies and marketing agencies. Many recent projects have included everything from nutrition and health services, where a lot of research and citations were needed, to writing about health, sustainable, eco-friendly products.

Follow Shana at Shana Thompson

More Articles You May Enjoy