September 04, 2019
The advice for sensible drinking should be the Department of Health (DH) advice – 2–3 units a day for women, 3–4 for men. There is no real evidence that red wine is better than any other alcohol, and resveratrol, the component concerned, may work well in a test tube but not so well in the body. Your body will react to alcohol in a unique (and not always the same) way, so watch how you drink it: it can disrupt sleep, lower energy and mood levels, and can for some be a strong contributory factor in carrying too much weight, as alcohol is not only calorific but can also increase appetite, take away any resolve you had to eat well and make you crave fatty, salty foods.
Does alcohol have health benefits?
Despite the headlines about the antioxidants in red wine, we now know that it’s only in a laboratory setting that they offer any real benefits, and I suspect that the other types of alcoholic antioxidants in white wine and beer won’t fare any better. Convincing studies show a link between drinking too much alcohol and development of mouth, throat, oesophagus, liver, bowel and breast cancers. Alcohol can also aggravate a fatty liver.