What Do We Really Know About The Health Benefits Of Wine?

There are thousands of articles and studies about wine and their health benefits. It can be tough to sort through all of them especially when so many of them contradict each other. So instead of picking a side we are going to lay out the straight up facts about wine that we know are 100% true. 

Red Wine has a lot of antioxidants including resversatrol and flavonoids. 

Resversatrol is found in the skin of grapes and has been rumored to help with anti-aging. Sadly, the amount of resversatrol that would have to be ingested to fight wrinkles is way more than anyone should consume through wine. 

Flavonoids is an antioxidant that, while it can help you stay healthy, doesn't necessarily cure or reverse an ailment. 

Wine has sugar! Grapes have sugar therefore wine has sugar but a lot of the glucose is broken down in the fermentation process. Dry wines have the least amount of sugar while white wines are known to be sweeter and yes, have more sugar in them. If you really love white wine but don't want all the sugar try making it a spritzer. Pour half a glass of wine over ice and fill it the rest of the way with club soda. 

Obviously, we all knew that wine has calories. Wines with higher alcohol content have more calories than those with more sugar. Why? A gram of alcohol has 7 calories while a gram of sugar has 4. There is a somewhat simple formula to help calculate the number of calories in wine. Let's do math! 

% of AlcoholXOuncesX1.6=Calorie Content

Most doctors would not recommend someone to begin drinking wine for the health benefits. For those who already drink wine, they would probably say moderation is best. And because we all have different definitions of moderation, let's break that down as well. 

Moderation means one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.  One glass of wine equals about 5 ounces. 

In our latest episode of Brown Bag Wine Tasting, William Shatner sat down with personal trainer Scott Haddock who described wine in terms of fitness.  Check it out now! 

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC, its affiliates, or its employees.

Continue the Discussion