So is Red Wine NOT Good for Your Heart After All? (Sigh)

by Lexi Petronis

Not to put a total damper on your Friday-night plans or anything, but a huge new study has found that red wine may not have the good-for-your-heart benefits that we've all thought it did.

According to new research in BMJ, there are no cardiovascular benefits to drinking alcohol moderately--not even with red wine, which has long been thought to contain heart-boosting antioxidants.

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The study reviewed the results from more than 50 studies--involving 260,000 subjects--focusing on how drinking alcohol might impact cardiovascular health. The researchers looked at these subjects' DNA, focusing specifically on people who carried a gene called "alcohol dehydrogenase 1B"--essentially, a gene that makes people metabolize alcohol more quickly, thus feeling nauseated or throw-uppy more quickly than others without the gene.

The researchers found that these subjects--who ultimately drank less--seemed to have better cardiovascular health than the people who drank more. In fact, those with the gene drank 17 percent less alcohol each week, and a 10 percent reduced risk of coronary heart disease (as well as lower blood pressure and lower BMIs).

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This seemed to be the case across the board, no matter what kind of alcohol the subjects drank--even red wine. Says the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine's Michael Holmes (by way of Philadelphia Magazine): "The biggest takeaway is that people who drink less alcohol have lower risk of heart disease.... In other words, if you want to reduce risk of heart disease, drink less alcohol."

Ah, well. What do you think about the study?

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