One thing to know right up front is that dry red wine generally has little or no sugar in it, while white wine tends to have more.
The key to the medicinal effects of wine lies in the skins of the grapes they're made with. The red-purple color of red wine comes from a substance called anthocyanin, which is found in the skin on the grape. (It also is responsible for the color of black olives, strawberries, cherries and raspberries).
Anthocyanin is part of a group of chemicals that are called flavonoids. They help regulate cell growth; they are antioxidants; they reduce inflammation and they help prevent blood clots. White wine -- made from "white" grapes -- does not have nearly the level of flavonoids that the red wine has.
Red wine can also reduce oxidative stress that is caused by increased blood glucose levels after meals, according to Antonio Ceriello, MD, and associates. In a letter in the December 1999 issue of Diabetes Care, they showed that drinking two 5-ounce glasses of red wine with a meal by subjects with type 2 diabetes significantly reduced the compounds produced by the meal that could cause vascular damage by the mechanism of "oxidative stress." (Oxidation of LDL "bad" cholesterol causes fatty buildup in the arteries.)
Here's a Diabetes.org page on wine and flavonoids:
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Hey, Rochelle, great question.
One thing to know right up front is that dry red wine generally has little or no sugar in it, while white wine tends to have more.
The key to the medicinal effects of wine lies in the skins of the grapes they're made with. The red-purple color of red wine comes from a substance called anthocyanin, which is found in the skin on the grape. (It also is responsible for the color of black olives, strawberries, cherries and raspberries).
Anthocyanin is part of a group of chemicals that are called flavonoids. They help regulate cell growth; they are antioxidants; they reduce inflammation and they help prevent blood clots. White wine -- made from "white" grapes -- does not have nearly the level of flavonoids that the red wine has.
Red wine can also reduce oxidative stress that is caused by increased blood glucose levels after meals, according to Antonio Ceriello, MD, and associates. In a letter in the December 1999 issue of Diabetes Care, they showed that drinking two 5-ounce glasses of red wine with a meal by subjects with type 2 diabetes significantly reduced the compounds produced by the meal that could cause vascular damage by the mechanism of "oxidative stress." (Oxidation of LDL "bad" cholesterol causes fatty buildup in the arteries.)
Here's a Diabetes.org page on wine and flavonoids:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-cholesterol/faqs-redwine.jsp
Here's a very interesting blog written by a diabetic who pays attention to the wine issue (and also stresses testing):
http://blog.wineeducation.com/2007/03/diabetes-and-wine.html
And here's a story from Science Daily that discusses a study that measured how the chemicals in red wine and red grapes affected insulin in mice:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071002131152.htm
November 24, 2008 - 9:44amThis Comment
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