Fact Check: Is drinking red wine healthy for the heart?

Hyderabad: A post is being widely shared on various social media platforms claiming that consuming red wine helps maintain heart health. Click here, here, here, here, here and here to view the posts.

The viral post claims that “Red wine tannins protect against heart disease and lower your risk of heart attacks.”

The post has been shared since 2017 and is still resurfacing time and again on people’s social feeds.

Maintaining and keeping the heart healthy are immensely important as according to World Health Organisation (WHO) cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the world’s leading killer, causing 1 in every 3 deaths. The cause of heart attacks and strokes are usually the presence of a combination of risk factors, such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet and obesity, physical inactivity and use of alcohol, hypertension, diabetes and high level of cholesterol.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that red wine may not be as good for health as the post claims to be.

No amount of alcohol could be good for health.

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Red wine, in limited amounts, has long been thought of as healthy for the heart. The alcohol and certain substances in red wine called antioxidants may help prevent coronary artery disease, the condition that leads to heart attacks. Links between red wine and fewer heart attacks aren’t well understood.”

“Experts say not to start drinking alcohol to help your heart. This is especially true if you have an alcohol use disorder or if alcohol use disorder is in your family. Too much alcohol can harm the body in many ways”, the article further adds.

Red wine contains antioxidants called polyphenols that may help protect the lining of the blood cells in the heart. A kind of polyphenol called resveratrol is one of the parts of red wine which is considered to be the healthiest element for the heart in red wine. Resveratrol might help prevent damage to the blood cells and lower the density of lipoprotein cholesterol which is considered to be bad. It also prevents blood clotting.

However, researchers and study results on resveratrol are mixed. In some studies, it is considered to be healthy for the body’s hardware while others have not found any prominent benefits of drinking red wine for the heart. More research is needed to find a common conclusion.

To get a clearer idea of the debate over red wine, we reached out to Prof. Dr S Vijay Mohan, MD, senior consultant physician, Care Hospitals, and the HoD for the Department of Internal Medicine, to debunk the claim.

He said, “The debate on good and bad properties of alcohol is a never-ending topic. Though there is no doubt about the fewer good things about alcohol, the other side of the coin is that it also has many harmful effects. Right from the stomach, liver, pancreas, heart and brain alcohol may cause damage to all these vital organs. In very small quantities, they say, it has a beneficial effect as a dilator effect on arteries and some anti-oxidant properties. As long as it is consumed in moderation and occasionally it may not harm. Excess amounts regularly are dangerous. It has direct toxic effects on the liver (Hepatotoxic) and other organs, leading to several diseases like Hepatitis, Pancreatitis, Cardiomyopathy and a more serious Cirrhosis of the Liver.”

“During the last couple of decades, red wine has gained a reputation as a ‘good for health’ drink. It all began with an international study of heart diseases in Europe. They studied heart-related diseases statistics in several countries of Europe and concluded that in France heart-related diseases are less compared to other neighboring countries. They further studied the dietary habits of the people of France and found out that red wine is a very common drink in their day-to-day life, more than in other countries. Further research has revealed that the peal of the red grapes used in manufacturing red wine has a tremendous beneficial property which specifically helps increase the blocked arteries on the heart. They named this phenomenon the ‘French Paradox.’ The debate whether alcohol, red wine, in particular, is good or bad is an ongoing conundrum. We don’t recommend teetotallers to start drinking,” he added.

We also found a video of cardiologist Dr Christopher Labos on CBC saying, “Red wine does not offer a protective effect on the heart and alcohol can be damaging.” He further adds, “It’s never too late to adopt habits to improve heart health.”

WHO has laid out several habits to improve heart health such as:

- Eat a heart-healthy diet

- If overweight, lose weight

- Increase regular physical activity to at least 2.5 hours per week

- Don’t use tobacco

- Avoid use of alcohol

- Have your blood pressure and blood sugar checked regularly