We’ve spent years harping on the benefits of drinking red wine. I’ve written 10 articles on the subject, including my most recent one “Wine and Health: A Fun Deep Dive.” In the article, I say that polyphenols, which reside in the skins and seeds of grapes, act as antioxidants, scavenging free radicals from the body’s cells and preventing or reducing damaged caused by oxidation. Well, starting in January, there are have tons of articles on the not-so-good news about wine and other alcohol. Today, we’ll review the this not-so-good news.
The Articles
The number of articles is endless, but here are some of the key ones I found:
- Bloomberg, “Daily Glass of Wine Is Bad for You, Heart Federation Says in New Policy”
- Science Alert, “Data From Over 350,000 People Have Really Bad News About ‘Moderate’ Drinking”
- BBC, “No alcohol safe to drink, global study confirms”
The Scientific Study
All the articles are referring to a scientific study done by The Lancet, who says that four percent of all new cancers globally are caused by drinking alcohol and that esophageal cancer is the cancer type most associated with alcohol consumption.
Some of the articles say that no amount of alcohol is okay for you. But some say that the amount you drink makes a difference.
So What Are Wine Lovers to Do?
Well, this not-so-good news about wine definitely throws a wrench in our all-out enthusiasm about drinking wine. But the reality is most of us drink wine because we love the taste and the experience. It turns out that there are a bunch of things we do in our lives that aren’t considered exactly healthy: eating a lot of sugar, not exercising, smoking, sitting too long, getting stressed out, eating microwave popcorn and much more.
The more bad things we can eliminate from our lives, the better. But do we need to obsess about eliminating all of those things. I don’t think so. And maybe that’s just me, the wine lover who needs a reason to continue drinking wine.
I would love to hear your thoughts about this not-so-pleasant news.
