After red wine, now it’s turn for white wine to contain all the goodness of health. The researchers from University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington claims that one to two glasses of white wine daily can help protect the heart during a heart attack just like red wine.
Many previous studies have shown that moderate drinking of alcohol daily helps in fighting heart diseases and some studies have put red wine at the top of chart with stronger effects than other beverages.
Research shows that the cardioprotective compounds in grapes, polyphenolic antioxidantsdefine, reside in the skin and seeds. Red wine is made from the crushed dark colored grapes which remain in contact with the grape skin during fermentation and contain antioxidants called polyphenols which helps in lowering cholesterol, preventing cancerdefine and combating cardiovascular disease.
However, white wine lacks the properties as it is fermented only from the pressed juice of the grape and contains no resveratrol, a wonder ingredient found only in grape skin. But the new American study rejects it and says white wine is as good as a triple of red wine.
Lead author of the study, Dipak Das, of the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine in Farmington, said, “The flesh of the grape can do the same job as the skin”.
The scientists conducted the experiments on rats; half of the lab rates were given red wine (one to 2 glasses a day) while another half received plain water or straight liquor (beer or vodka) in the same amount.
They found that lab rats fed on white wine experienced less damage to the heart during a cardiacdefine arrestdefine as compared to the rats fed water or straight liquor. After conducting the molecular tests of heart cells, researchers found that cell's powerhouses, known as mitochondria, was protected by white wine.
The lead author expects more research in near future to confirm the health impact of white wine. The findings of the study appear in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
In June 2008, researchers from Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology claimed that they have developed white wine with the same health benefits as red. They revealed that the team has developed a white wine with boosted levels of plant chemicals and polyphenols, believed to fight heart disease. And the new wine will not only have same taste, color and aroma just like regular white wine but will also contain the same beneficial substances of red wine.
Another latest study published in the October 2008 issue of the Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, found that drinking moderate amounts of red wine could slash the risk of lung cancer in men, especially among current and former smokers.
A new study, published in the Archives of Neurology, Journal of American Medical Association on October 14, suggests that drinking in moderate amounts can be good for the heart, but it is bad for the brain.
When on one hand many international studies are praising the health benefits of wines, there are a few studies which reveal that consumers do not get much protection from wine than they do from drinking beer and spirits.