Red Wine May Protect Liver

The study found that drinking a glass of red wine every day may reduce the risk of a certain liver disease by as much as 50%.¹

Over the last decade, the recommendation of moderate consumption of alcohol, particularly a daily glass of red wine, for individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease has become common. However, the same group of individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease are also at risk for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is a disease that is associated with America's expanding waste line. While not long ago the disease was exceedingly rare, NAFLD now affects over 40 million Americans, making it the most common liver disease in the US.

The UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers set out to determine what effect alcohol consumption may have on NAFLD risk. The researchers used dated collected on 11,754 participants from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The participants consisted of 7,211 non-drinkers, 945 modest wine drinkers, 2,237 modest beer drinkers, 688 modest liquor drinkers, and 673 modest drinkers of a combination of alcoholic beverages. After adjusting for other variables, the results showed that the wine drinkers had 50% less risk of developing NAFLD than the nondrinkers. Interestingly those who drink moderate amounts of beer and liquor had a four times greater risk of developing NAFLD than those who did not drink at all.

The researchers stated that "the current study presents a paradigm shift that modest wine consumption may not only be safe from a liver perspective but may actually decrease the prevalence of NAFLD." The researchers speculated that it is the nonalcoholic components, the polyphenols (such as OPCs, resveratrol and other antioxidants), in the wine that provide the benefits, since those who drank other forms of alcohol had a higher risk of NAFLD.

The antioxidants in red wine have become a hot bed of research (be sure to read the recent research on resveratrol ).

Learn more about the antioxidant compounds found in red wine.