DENMARK: Wine Drinkers Have Healthier Diets Than Beer Drinkers
Is the whole wine/health debate simply a post hoc ergo propter
hoc fallacy? Just because you drink wine and have good health,
does that mean that good health follows from wine drinking? Or could
it be that people with good health just seem to choose wine as their
beverage of choice?
Studies have shown that drinking wine is associated with lower
mortality than drinking beer or spirits. Some studies have also
suggested that wine drinkers have healthier diets than beer or
spirits drinkers, and this may explain wine's beneficial effect on
health.
To study this theory, researchers in Denmark investigated the link
between the purchase of beer and wine and various food items from
supermarkets. They analysed 3.5 million transactions chosen at
random from 98 outlets of two large Danish supermarket chains over a
six month period.
Customers were categorised as:
- "wine only,"
- "beer only,"
- "mixed," or
- "non-alcohol" buyers.
Details of items bought, the number and price of the
items, and the total charge for each customer's
transaction were recorded. |
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The results were published in the British Journal of
Medicine. They indicate that people who buy (and presumably
drink) wine purchase a greater number of healthy food items
than those who buy beer, say the authors.
Wine buyers bought more olives, fruit and vegetables,
poultry, cooking oil, and low fat cheese, milk, and meat
than beer buyers. Beer buyers, on the other hand, bought
more ready cooked dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork,
butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks than
wine buyers.
The results also support findings from the United States,
Denmark, and France showing that wine drinkers tend to eat
fruit, vegetables, and fish and use cooking oil more often
and saturated fat less often than those who prefer other
alcoholic drinks.
Science Daily commented on the findings by picking up the
disclaimers that the researchers made:
“The health benefits of drinking wine may be due
to specific substances in wine or to different
characteristics of people who drink other types of
alcohol, [the researchers] add. Thus, it is crucial that
studies on the relation between alcohol intake and
mortality adjust for other lifestyle factors such as
drinking patterns, smoking, physical activity,
education, or income.”
An American study published in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, surveyed alcoholic beverage preference
in a large and homogeneous group of highly educated
upper-income Americans. It found that beverage choice has
implications beyond the relative physiological benefits of
alcohol.
Science Daily also reported on this earlier study:
“Wine drinking has consistently been associated
with reductions in cardiovascular risk due to the
presence of polyphenols in wine, but in the current
study wine drinking was additionally correlated with
healthier overall dietary and lifestyle choices.
Conversely, the authors suggest that concurrent diet and
lifestyle patterns may explain the higher rates of
morbidity and mortality among non-drinkers.
The 2,864 men and 1,571 women participants, averaging 48
years old, were part of the University of North Carolina
Alumni Heart Study, a long-term investigation of
cardiovascular risk with a special emphasis on
psychosocial variables. The study population was unique
in that the subjects had a wide variety of alcoholic
beverage preference (beer, wine, spirits, or no
preference); and they were 99% Caucasian, affluent,
highly educated, and from the same geographic region.
Health and lifestyle differences were greatest between
participants who preferred wine and those who preferred
other alcoholic beverages or were abstainers. Women
reported healthier dietary habits than men, regardless
of alcoholic beverage choice. Men and women who
preferred wine consistently consumed less saturated fat
and cholesterol, smoked less, and exercised more than
those who preferred beer, spirits, or had no preference.
Abstainers, who made up 20% of the subjects, have been
shown in previous studies to have higher disease and
death rates than moderate drinkers. Negative health and
lifestyle factors among the abstaining subjects,
including lower intake of fruits and vegetables and
higher rates of smoking and red meat consumption, may
explain why non-drinkers have poorer health than
drinkers.
An implication of the study is that the benefits of wine
drinking may not be merely physiological; preferring
wine as an alcoholic beverage may be part of an overall
pattern that leads to better health. The authors suggest
that future research might focus on dietary and
lifestyle differences between those who drink and those
who abstain, as well as on the relative health
advantages of alcoholic beverage choices.”
It’s a pity, really. It almost seemed too good to be
true. In the same way that a forlorn dieter might think that
the calories in eating half a cheesecake are cancelled out
by drinking a litre of diet coke, I guess we can kiss
goodbye the notion that a risks of a gourmand diet are
cancelled out by drinking cabernet sauvignon.
Ben Killerby
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