Ciencia, vino y salud

RESUMO

A large number of prospective studies have observed an inverse relationship between a moderate intake of alcohol and coronary heart disease morbidity and mortality. Concerning death from all-causes, results are not unanimous. Alcohol intake was associated with a protection of all-cause mortality in England and USA physicians and the large study of the American Cancer Society. None of these studies separated the effects of different alcoholic beverages. In our prospective studies in France on 35 000 middle-aged men, we observed that only wine at moderate intake, was associated with a protective effect on all-cause mortality. The reason was that in addition to the known effect on cardiovascular diseases, a very moderate intake of wine, protected also from cancer and other causes as confirmed by Gronbaek in Denmark. Our recent results also indicate that the protective effect of a moderate intake of wine on all-cause mortality is observed at all levels of blood pressure and serum cholesterol.