Nutrition News South Africa

Nothing to whine about

The list of benefits of drinking red wine is never ending. According to researchers wine consumption may have the following effects.

Feed your head

Wine could preserve your memory. Researchers gave memory quizzes to women in their 70s and those who drank daily scored much better than those who drank less or not at all.

Wine helps prevent clots and reduce blood vessel inflammation, both of which have been linked to cognitive decline and heart disease.

Alcohol also seems to raise HDL, the so-called good cholesterol that helps unclog arteries.

Keep the scale in your corner

Studies find that people who drink wine daily have lower body mass than those who indulge occasionally.

Moderate wine drinkers have narrower waists and less abdominal fat than people who drink hard liquor.

Alcohol may encourage your body to burn extra calories for up to 90 minutes after you down a glass.

Boost your defence force

People who drank a glass of wine a day reduced their risk of infection by Helicobacter pylori bacteria, a major cause of gastritis, ulcers and stomach cancers by 11%.

As little as half a glass may help guard against food poisoning caused by germs like salmonella .

Guard against ovarian woes

Roughly one glass of wine a day seems to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 50%.

Experts suspect this may be due to antioxidants or phytoestrogens, which have high anti-cancer properties and are prevalent in wine.

And red wine compound helped kill ovarian cancer cells in a test tube.

Build better bones

Women who drink moderately have higher bone mass than abstainers.

Alcohol boosts oestrogen levels, which seems to slow the body's destruction of old bone .

Prevent blood-sugar trouble

Premenopausal women who drink one or two glasses of wine a day are 40% less likely than women who don't drink to develop type 2 diabetes.

The reasons aren't clear, but wine seems to reduce insulin resistance in diabetic patients.

Source: Sunday World

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