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Nutritional Contents Of Wine Health

Nutritional contents of wine are minimal. There is no fat, cholesterol, or dietary fiber in any wine. On the other hand, only with overindulgence would anyone reach their Minimum Daily Requirement for calories, carbohydrates, sodium, protein, vitamins or minerals, all of which all wines contain to some degree. The specific content varies between types, depending upon color, alcoholic strength and residual sugar. Note the Single Serving Size when comparing data in this table.

TYPE, COLOR & ALCOHOL	Dry Red **12.5%	Dry White **12.5%	*Sweet Dessert **18%
SINGLE SERVING SIZE	6 ounces	6 oz	3 oz
SODIUM	8.5 milligrams	8.5 mg	7.65 mg
CALORIES	123	115	130
CARBOHYDRATES	2.9 grams	1.35 g	10 g
***PROTEIN	.28 grams	.14 g	.17 g

• based upon a wine with a residual sugar content of 8% (higher sugar increases carbs)
• higher alcohol increases calories
• wines that are unfined and unfiltered may be somewhat higher in protein

Wine vitamin content is expressed here as a percentage of Estimated Daily Requirements, based on a 2000 calorie diet.

VITAMIN B1 (Thiamin)	.01%	.01%	.02%
VITAMIN B2 (Riboflavin)	.05%	.01%	.02%
VITAMIN B3 (Niacin)	.13%	.12%	.18%

 

Wines also contain trace amounts of other vitamins and minerals,
but at such low levels that they are insignificant for dietary consideration.

The Official Recommendation in the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Fourth Edition, published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is "Advice for today: if you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation, with meals, and when consumption does not put you or others at risk." This is a rather weak and passive permission, rather than the ringing endorsement moderate wine consumption deserves, according to the vast majority of medical and scientific evidence. It is, however, a progressive leap from the 1990 Guidelines, which said, "wine has no net health benefit", which is the contemporary scientific equivalent of saying "the earth is flat". (see Wine Politics)

On the other hand, wine is not a cure-all and not everyone should drink wine. There are also circumstances when no one should drink any alcohol. When combined with certain prescription drugs, for example, alcohol in any form can produce an adverse reaction. Wine should not be given to people with inflammations of the digestive tract, peptic ulcers, liver disease, pancreatitis, kidney or urinary infections, prostate disorders, epilepsy, or alcoholism. As previously mentioned, pre-menopausal women with a family history of breast cancer should abstain from drinking any alcohol, including wine.

Sulfites exist in nature and are also added to preserve many common foods, including wine. About 1% of the general population and about 5% of asthma sufferers may react to sulfites. Symptoms often include restricted breathing ability or nausea. However, this is a relatively rare occurrence which depends on both the sensitivity of the individual and the level of sulfites in the food. The human body actually produces about 1 gram of sulfites daily through normal metabolism.

Foods may legally contain sulfites at levels ranging from 6 to 6,000 parts per million. The legal maximum for wine is 350 ppm, but the average content in premium wine is under 40 ppm. White wines are generally higher in sulfites than red wines. Inexpensive wines generally have higher sulfur content than expensive wines. There are no wines that are entirely sulfite-free, even those labeled "organic".
The best advice is to waste no time thinking about sulfites, unless your personal physician has warned you against them. For a more complete discussion, visit our article on Understanding Wine Labels.

Headaches, affecting some people during or after consuming wine, may result from individual reactions to one or more of wines' natural compounds. Red wine is suspected by some sufferers to trigger migraine headaches. Phenolic flavanoids (the same ones that provide anti-oxidant benefits) are a component in grape skins related to tannins and which clinical evidence has shown to be the culprits. Red wine has a much higher content than white wine of both tannins and flavanoids.

Chemicals called amines either dilate (histamines) or constrict (tyramines) blood vessels in the brain, either of which may cause headaches in a small percentage of the populace sensitive enough to be affected. Aged and fermented foods such as cheese, sauerkraut, salami, and sourdough bread are high in histamines. Although both red and white wines contain histamines, reds generally have higher content, especially low-acid reds made from grapes grown in warmer areas. Chocolate, vanilla, beans, nuts, bananas, cultured products like cheese and yogurt and fermented products, especially dark beer, soy sauce and red wine are all significant sources of tyramines. Taking antihistamine drugs, either before or after consuming, won't prevent or cure headaches.

The use of either aspirin or acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) in close time frame to alcohol consumption can seriously damage the lining of the stomach and should be avoided. The combination of acetaminophen and ethanol causes liver damage, so the former should never be used to treat hangover symptoms.

The only way to prevent a hangover is to avoid consuming too much alcohol. One good habit to develop is to match every glass of wine or drink with one full glass of water. Alcohol depletes electrolytes from the body and brain, so "sports" drinks can help also. The worst possible hangover "cure" is "hair of the dog", since hangover is merely the winky-winky, socially-tolerant slang term to describe episodic alcoholism withdrawal.

Overindulgence is potentially the worst health problem of consuming wine or any alcoholic beverage. Drinking too much ethanol at one time will cause headaches, nausea, and other symptoms for anyone, regardless of individual tolerance to other compounds in wine. Drinking too much or too fast leads to loss of control and judgment. A couple of glasses of wine may help relaxation and lower blood pressure, but four or more raises blood pressure to a level of concern.

Alcohol enters the bloodstream while it passes from the stomach to the small intestine and continues to the liver which uses an enzyme called dehydrogenase to break down and eliminate alcohol from the body. Evidence suggests factors of body size, muscle mass, food intake, gender, and experience affect one's capacity to resist drunkenness to some degree. On average, a healthy human can metabolize one-half ounce of alcohol per hour. The best rule is to not consume more than one drink (4 ounces of table wine) per hour, regardless of size, sex, or a full stomach.

Practiced in moderation and consumed with food at mealtime, wine drinking may develop cultural and sociological patterns that actually help to prevent alcoholism. The vast majority of healthy people may enjoy wine regularly and moderately as a pleasure that supports and prolongs a gracious life.

Recent Discovered Benefits Of Red Wine Health

In this last years have been innumerable the investigations developed everywhere to find the bond that exists among the moderate consumption of wine and the health in the persons. The scientists reveal us that the red wine possesses components that fight an associated protein to the heart illnesses. Recently it has been discovered that the polifenoles that are found in the skin of the grapes and in the red wine, reduce the production of a protein called "endotelina-1" responsible of the narrowness of the blood glasses and that besides diminishes the flow of oxygen to the heart. For which, diminishing the presence of this protein consequently we will reduce the risk of contracting a coronary illness. In studies carried out about red wine health, cientifics experimented with arterial cells that went dealt with extracts without alcohol of various types of red, white and pink wines; the most powerful one blockader of the endotelina-1 and consequently the better red wine health, was the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Up to now we knew the antioxidant properties of the polifenoles, that is to say, their capacity to eliminate the free radicals of the body that cause this type of illnesses. With the recent investigations, is explained that the polifenoles of the red wine inhibit the tirosina quinasas proteins, that are a group of enzimas fundamental for cell regulation, what is translated in a blockade to the synthesis of the endotelines. This new property of the red wine adds to the already known antioxidant properties of the polifenoles. Nevertheless, the changes that the wine causes in the human body are very modest, for which we should not believe that we can solve a present cardiovascular illness drinking more red wine; only and of preventive form, the red wine, a balanced diet and a healthy form of life, all of them together, will move us away of any danger in our coronary health.

Also, in other recent investigations, the benefit of the moderate consumption of wine is being studied to reduce the mental risks of illnesses, although at the same time the excessive consumption increases them. In this study about red wine health,is shown, although without presenting still a scientific explanation, that the moderate consumption of wine protects against the wear of the brain in the third age, finding that the ones that have been habitual drinkers of wine have a much lower index of mental illness that those that it went not.