Information Related to "Should You Drink Wine?"
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Should You Drink Wine? |
Louis
Pasteur reportedly said, "Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic
of beverages" (Don Colbert, M.D., What Would Jesus Eat?, 2002,
p. 131).
In recent years
some physicians have touted wine as beneficial to health, particularly the
circulatory system.
A 1992 report in the British medical journal Lancet stated: "The French consume approximately a third more fat, including saturated fats, than Americans. They smoke more than Americans and exercise very little. Yet they have one of the lowest heart attack rates in the world. They also have one of the lowest incidences of stroke. These scientists who took a look at the French way of life concluded that this low incidence of heart disease was due to the fact that the vast majority of people in France consume a moderate amount of red wine daily" (ibid., pp. 131-132).
Research into the effects that wine has on the body has produced some probable reasons for wine’s ability to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Resveratrol is a substance that occurs naturally in wine. "When wine ferments, the resveratrol level in the finished wine increases to a level high enough to have a pharmacological effect. Resveratrol in the human body appears to increase HDL levels while lowering overall cholesterol levels" (David Whitten, M.D., Ph.D., and Martin Lipp, M.D., To Your Health! Two Physicians Explore the Health Benefits of Wine, 1994, p. 40).
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