The buzz about red wine health benefits

What are the benefits of drinking red wine and does white wine also have the same benefits?

The buzz about red wine is its reputation for being heart healthy. In studies looking at large numbers of people, drinking red wine has been associated with cardiovascular benefits, but these may be due to other aspects of the red wine drinker's lifestyle.

Potential health benefits of red wine also have been shown in research studies using various types of tissues and cells. Interest has focused on a variety of polyphenol antioxidants in wine, such as resveratrol and flavonoids concentrated in grape skin. Much attention has been given to resveratrol. This and other antioxidant components also have shown potential when studied separately from the rest of the wine.

Antioxidants are present in white wine, but in lower amounts, and overall, studies using white wine have not been as fruitful. However, some information suggests that white wine may have its own health protecting substances.

While there is a lot of discussion out there on potential benefits of red wine, the story isn't complete. So far, no one has shown that red wine drinkers are healthier than white wine drinkers.

The story gets a bit more complicated in that cardiovascular benefits are associated with drinking one to two alcohol-containing beverages per day, regardless of the source. How this happens isn't well sorted out, but scientists are exploring a number of areas including effects on blood cholesterol, blood thickness and stickiness, inflammation and glucose control. Studies with purple grape juice and wine with the alcohol removed have shown positive results supporting the idea that the influence of red wine may be more than just an alcohol effect.

So, is it time to start drinking red wine? Definitely not, says the American Heart Association.

While modest intakes of alcohol appear to be associated with heart health, the American Heart Association strongly recommends against starting to drink alcohol for heart health. The many well known detrimental effects of drinking alcohol would appear to outweigh the potential benefits of red wine. The American Heart Association does recommend talking to your doctor about current approaches to improving cardiovascular health such as lowering cholesterol, controlling blood pressure, healthy changes in the diet and increased physical activity.

Red wine is just one of many sources of antioxidants that can be part of a healthy diet. Antioxidants are abundant and accessible in a wide variety of foods such as berries, red beans, artichokes, nuts and chocolate. Resveratrol can be found in grapes, grape juice and peanuts.

What are the different types of fats?

A few years ago, many dieters got on a "fat-free" kick, overlooking the many benefits of fat in the diet. Fat provides essential nutrients and energy for the body and carries important nutrients from foods into the body. What we all know from experience is that fat makes food taste good. The average diet has many types of fat, each with potential health consequences. Choosing foods with healthy fats takes some knowhow.

In simple terms, there are healthy fats in foods and there are fats that are not so healthy. The fats that are considered not so healthy are the saturated and trans fats that are known to raise blood total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, commonly known as "bad" cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of developing heart disease.

Before opening the flood gates to heart healthy fats in your diet, keep in mind that gram per gram, fat packs twice the amount of calories as carbohydrate or protein. Weight gain will result from overeating any fat. The American Heart Association recommends that the amount of fat taken in each day as a proportion of total calories needs to be limited to 25 percent to 35 percent.

So, what are the healthy fats and where can you find them?

Let's start with the good guys -- polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. These are the best fats to have in the diet. Both may help lower blood cholesterol levels.

Polyunsaturated fats include essentials that the body needs including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Foods that have polyunsaturated fats are vegetable oils, including soybean oil, corn oil and safflower oil, as well as fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and trout. Other sources are some nuts and seeds such as walnuts and sunflower seeds. Monounsaturated fats are found in olive, canola, peanut and sesame oils and also in avocadoes, olives and many nuts and seeds.

Now the bad guys, saturated and hydrogenated fats. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. The chemistry of some hydrogenated fats makes them trans fats. These fats are now included on food labels so you can see where saturated and trans fats hide. It is recommended that intakes of saturated fat make up no more than 7 percent of calories taken in and the recommendation for trans fats is less than 1 percent of the total calories. If you don't carry a calculator around, just avoid them.

So what foods to avoid? Saturated fats are found mostly in animal products such as meat, dairy, butter, and cheese. They are in some foods that come from plants such as tropical oils -- coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil and cocoa butter. By checking labels you'll see that these fats are found in many processed foods.

Foods that contain hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats are margarine and spreads. Trans fats are found naturally in small amounts in foods of animal origin such as beef, pork, lamb, and also butter and milk. Trans fats are present in greater amounts in processed foods that include oils that have been made solid through a manufacturing process called hydrogenation. These foods include cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, doughnuts, muffins, french fries, household shortenings and hard (stick) margarine. It pays to go slow on these foods.

Lynn Janas and Hope Bilyk are nutritionists with Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago. This column is for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Specific medical advice should only be obtained from a licensed health care practitioner. No liability is assumed by the authors or Rosalind Franklin University for any information contained herein.

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