Is red wine actually healthy?

Published in

Scientia

6 min readJul 12, 2024

“Believe it or not, red wine is actually good for the heart”, my middle school teacher told my class, unknowingly placing this hearsay information into the back of my mind for years to come. I didn’t question it, regardless of how many times my parents had warned me about the risks of alcohol previously. However, as I have developed as a researcher, reader, and writer, I have gained the tools to assess the validity of my old teacher’s statement. So recently, I took a plunge into revisiting the idea of red wine being healthy for the heart, and what I found was rather surprising—just one example of the dangers of widespread misinformation. In fact, red wine is anything but scientifically proven to be good for the heart, and it could actually introduce adverse effects. Let’s explore how.

Where did this idea come from?

Since the 1980s, the French Paradox is largely responsible for the emergence of the idea that red wine is good for cardiovascular health. It proposes that drinking wine may explain the low rates of cardiac disease among the French population, despite their diets including a relatively high intake of cheeses and other foods high in fats.¹ Then, a segment of the show “60 Minutes” on CBS (1991) spread the French Paradox effectively throughout North America, in which claims that red wine prevented blood clot formation surfaced. A year later, red wine sales in the US raised 40%.²

At the time, these claims were not pulled completely out of thin air. Red wine is made through fermenting grapes with the skin still on. In grape skin, there are a multitude of polyphenol antioxidants and anti-inflammatory molecules, the most potent of which is a molecule called resveratrol. Multiple studies have shown that the presence of resveratrol in red wine is linked to decreased rates of cardiovascular disease in regular red wine drinkers.³ Along with this, research came out suggesting resveratrol may reduce the risk of certain cancers, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.⁴ A study conducted in 1997 also showed that mortality rates from cardiovascular diseases were 30% to 40% lower in adults reporting at least one serving of red wine per day when compared to non-drinkers.⁵ And this information became widely available with a single Google search. In fact, you can find all the information I just talked about in these few paragraphs by searching up “red wine benefits” and taking a look at the first few sources, even from commonly trusted medical sources like WebMD, Healthline, and Mayo Clinic.

Seeing this, it was no wonder my middle school teacher had believed drinking red wine was a method for preventing heart disease, or that so many others like him shared these views.

However, though there have been many studies which have recognized a link between drinking red wine and decreased cardiac disease rates, they don’t quite tell the full story. There were crucial limitations of these studies that were not pushed as strongly by the media as the emergence of red wine as a supposedly healthy drink.

The limitations of the research.

There were 2 major issues with the studies that promoted red wine for cardiac health:

A) The type of study. According to Harvard University’s Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, all of the experimental research claiming that people who drink moderate amounts of alcohol have lower rates of heart disease is completely observational. No interventions were introduced to a certain population to track effects over time. Thus, cause and effect relationships could not be established. The research may point out associations, but the weight of these associations is challenged by the second issue;

B) How accurately they measured the variables of interest. Cardiac, or even general health is not solely dependent on resveratrol or antioxidants. Factors such as lifestyle, diet, exercise, predisposed risks to developing cardiac conditions, age, sex, economic status, and work environments all contribute to our health, yet are not accounted for by most studies. In fact, those that are able to afford to drink moderate volumes of red wine daily may potentially be in a relatively better economic position, and may have access to better heathcare.

But it’s not only these limitations that are problematic. The same 1997 study that showed decreased mortality rates from cardiovascular disease in alcohol-consuming populations also showed that breast cancer mortality was 30% higher in women that reported at least one drink daily compared to non-drinkers. This pattern of incomplete contextualization is what gave way to the French Paradox in the first place.

However, even if red wine was good for the heart because of the resveratrol from the grapes, you would be surprised to see how much one would have to drink to obtain a therapeutic dose of the polyphenol.

Amount of a food/drink required to meet the 1g/day therapeutic dose for resveratrol (unbound). | Source.

Considering a daily dosage of 1g of resveratrol being therapeutic for heart health, according to a 2016 study, one would have to drink at least 500 L of red wine per day to gain any real benefit from its polyphenol content.⁶ It is worth noting these calculations were done only with unbound resveratrol found in these foods, and did not include any derivatives or preceding molecules that would have increased their antioxidant concentrations, however, it is clear that the amount of red wine one would have to drink to gain any value to their health is absurd and impossible. There have even been studies that confirm this, and show that a diet rich in resveratrol actually offers no health boost on its own.⁷

Thus, it seems clear that red wine itself provides no significant cardiovascular or general health benefit. However, as an alcoholic beverage, it does certainly have some drawbacks, just like many other drinks rumoured to be good for health.

Is alcohol ever good for your health?

I think one crucial takeaway from this entire red wine situation is that neither should health information always be generalized or mass marketed without strong scientific backing, nor should you take adopt health advice from the radio or internet without first consulting a professional that knows you well. So, throwing around questions like “is x ever good for you?” can be dangerous (how ironic!), but shining light on some statistics and information obtained through research, along with context does not hurt.

So, I believe it is important to balance our discussion of the myth of red wine health benefits by sharing some information on the risks of alcohol, especially when viewed therapeutically.

A recent systematic review involving more than 4.8 million participants (2023) found that there were no statistically significant reductions in risk of mortality (from any cause) for drinkers who drank less than 2 standard drinks (25g ethanol) per day when compared to non-drinkers. However, there was a significantly increased risk of mortality for women who drank over 25g and men who drank over 45g of ethanol per day.⁸

Additionally, according to the World Heart Federation, even small amounts of alcohol can increase one’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease—a direct contrast to what the French Paradox proposed last century.⁹

An article published by the World Health Organization last year went a step further to say “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health”, and that to identify a safe level of consumption, there would need to be valid scientific evidence that below a certain level of intake, there is no risk of illness or injury. However, the WHO states that there is no evidence yet of a threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol begin to function, thus putting alcohol in the same group of potentially cancer-causing agents as asbestos radiation and tobacco (group 1).¹⁰

The moral of the story…

is that health information can be incredibly valuable, but without context and proper research, it can also be very dangerous. Red wine does not seem to be the magical drink of heart health that it was once portrayed to be, and I hope that by understanding the risks of widespread health misinformation, you can be more diligent with your health decisions, and ensure to do your research and contact a health professional before listening to what the internet has to say about your well-being.

If you would like to learn more about this topic, here are a list of sources I used to write this article!

Is red wine actually healthy?

Where did this idea come from?

The limitations of the research.

Is alcohol ever good for your health?

The moral of the story…

Written by Harsh Desai