You were right the first time with "bottle"....
The French scientist who showed the world that wine is good for the heart has a new discovery: two to three glasses of wine a day reduces death rates from all ailments by up to 30 percent.
"I've always suspected this," said Dr. Serge Renaud, whose findings appeared in the journal Epidemiology . "Wine protects not only against heart disease but also most cancers."
Renaud's study of 34,000 middle-aged men living in eastern France supports what has become known as "the French paradox": Frenchmen who eat lots of saturated fat but still live a long time.
Results were the same for smokers, nonsmokers and former smokers, he said, and there were no differences between white collar and blue collar drinkers.
Recent studies in the United States found that a drink of almost any type of alcohol can lower death rates by reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Renaud, however, maintains that wine also acts against other heart ailments and cancers because of the antioxidant action of polyphenol compounds in grapes.
"Wine is a more diluted form of alcohol, which is important to the body and, if taken moderately at mealtime, it is easily absorbed," he explained.
Renaud set off a California wine boom in 1991 when he outlined his French-paradox theory in an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes . "It started a huge controversy," the 70-year-old researcher recalled, chuckling"The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms challenged me to show numbers. Well, here they are." In fact, he had already made his case in a 1992 article in Lancet . He reported that 20-30 grams of alcohol daily could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by at least 40 percent.
Alcohol protects the heart mainly by acting on platelets in the blood to prevent clotting, he found. Subsequent studies elsewhere supported these findings.
In the Epidemiology article, Renaud reported a 30 percent reduction in death rates from all ailments from 2-3 glasses of wine a day, a 35 percent reduction from cardiovascular disease, and an 18-24 percent reduction from cancer.
He plans a second article later this year with a more detailed analysis of his sampling. He is a strong advocate of the Mediterranean diet, based heavily on wheat, olive oil and vegetables, with more fish than red meat. And, of course, Renaud adds, a healthy amount of wine.
Renaud laments a steady drop in wine consumption among many Frenchmen, who these days take less time for meals and relaxation.
"The Italians still drink a lot of wine," he said. "Maybe in time we will have to call it 'the Italian paradox'."
