healthy habit of drinking

[helenas]

'>http://www.winespectator.com/Wine....html

[helenas]

on the other hand:

"...Better Psychological Functioning and Higher Social Status May Largely Explain the Apparent Health Benefits of Wine..."

'>http://archinte.ama-assn.org/issues/v161n1...oi00676.html

[Ron Johnson]

In other words, while there is a correlation between wine consumption and good health, there is not causation.

[macrosan]

That's true of the second study, Ron, but the first is strictly causative. The chemical effect of red wine on HDL and as an antioxidant has been documented for 20 years.

I wish someone would get me on one of these studies where the guinea-pigs have to drink half a bottle of wine a day for two weeks :) I wonder if they let us choose from the wine list

(Edited by macrosan at 10:00 pm on Dec. 13, 2001)

[Wilfrid]

Quote: from macrosan on 5:00 pm on Dec. 13, 2001

That's true of the second study

Taken in isolation, that's what the second study implies.  But it doesn't tell us much.  Higher social status always correlates with better health, and in a country like Denmark where it also correlates with wine drinking, it certainly confounds any conclusion that wine consumption itself is causing better health.

The interesting study would be one run in a country where wine consumption is not correlated with higher social status, such as France, Italy or Spain, and see if the apparent health benefits persist.  And indeed, I seem to recall that the original supportive data for the beneficial health effects did come from France.  So at most the Danish study tells us that any causal relationship between wine consumtpion and good health can't be identified from Danish data, because other factors create too much "white noise".

[macrosan]

Wilfrid, you're right. There was a major study done of the Mediterranean countries (France, Italy, Spain) which covered the total diet.

The study concluded that the combination of red wine, olive oil and garlic in diet was highly beneficial to the cardiovascular system.

A further study was done in France only, specifically looking at the issue of red wine consumption, and concluded that it was beneficial in itself as described in the original post to this thread. Of course it did NOT investigate the detrimental effects such as gout and the possible causal link between alcohol consumption and smoking. However, we don't wish to know that, do we :)