News

Wine with meal shown to have health benefits

09 September 2024 By James Evison

A new scientific study has shown that drinking wine with a meal can have health benefits and reduce the risk of mortality for older drinkers.

Although the scientists focused mainly on the risk of higher mortality with low-level drinking, they admitted that those who drank wine with a meal did appear to see benefits.

In a study published online on JAMA Network of 135,103 older drinkers from the UK’s Biobank, it found those who showed a preference for wine and drinking with meals showed small protective associations with mortality, especially from cancer.

Scientists tested against three categories of drinking patterns: no wine preference nor drinking only during meals; wine preference or drinking only during meals; and wine preference and drinking only during meals.

In its conclusion, the scientists said that the lowering “of mortality observed for wine preference and drinking only during meals requires further investigation, as it may mostly reflect the effect of healthier lifestyles, slower alcohol absorption, or nonalcoholic components of beverages”.

All-cause mortality

Wine preference and drinking only during meals were associated with lower all-cause mortality in participants with health-related risk factors, as well as in participants with socioeconomic risk factors.

Drinking only during meals was also associated with lower cancer mortality in participants with health-related risk factors or socioeconomic risk factors, and in individuals with socioeconomic risk factors, wine preference was associated with lower cancer mortality, and drinking only during meals with lower CVD mortality.

Adhering to both drinking patterns was associated with lower all-cause, cancer, and CVD mortality in drinkers with health-related or socioeconomic risk factors, and to a lesser extent, with lower all-cause death in drinkers without health-related risk factors.

Welcome boost

Importantly, it said, wine preference and drinking during meals “modified the association of mean alcohol intake with mortality: the excess risk of all-cause, cancer, and CVD death for high-risk drinkers, of all-cause and cancer death for moderate-risk drinkers, and of cancer death for low-risk drinkers versus occasional drinkers was attenuated and even lost among individuals with these drinking patterns.”

The news about wine and food will be welcome news to an industry battered by recent studies claiming that red wine should be dropped from the Mediterranean diet, the World Health Organisation stating there was no safe level of alcohol consumption, and Canada’s recommendation of alcohol use reducing to two drinks a week.