Wine, alcohol and health research: an in-depth look

Wines & Vines, May, 2003 by Elisabeth Holmgren

As the scientific debate continues, research investigations in Europe, and specifically Denmark, point to a number of wine-specific findings that are somewhat different from those found in the U.S. The Copenhagen City Heart Study lead by Dr. Morten Gronbaek looks at several disease outcomes and beverage choice based on data from the Danish government's Institute for Preventive Medicine.

Within the last decade, published data from the Danish cohort associates moderate alcohol consumption with several favorable health outcomes and reports specifically on wine and a reduced risk of all cause mortality. The landmark Copenhagen City Heart Study was published in 1995 in the British Medical Journal, concluding, "Low to moderate intake of wine is associated with lower mortality from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and other causes."

The results showed that the risk of dying steadily decreased with moderate wine consumption, reducing chance of death from CHD by up to 50% and other causes of death between 20% and 50% compared to abstinence. In 2000, Gronbaek and colleagues confirmed these earlier findings, explaining that wine intake may have a beneficial effect on all cause mortality that is "additive to that of alcohol."

Since 1995, Gronbaek and colleagues have published various scientific findings, indicating a reduced likelihood of hip fracture, lung cancer, upper digestive tract cancers, and certain types of stroke, ulcers, liver cirrhosis and dementia. The latter represents the most recently published 2002 study results finding some protection against dementia for wine drinkers. The researchers state, "Monthly and weekly intake of wine, ....is associated with a lower risk of dementia." (Please review the box on page 80 for a historical perspective on the key study conclusions.)

The Possible Role Of Lifestyle Factors

Related to the most recent findings from Kaiser Permanente, the Danish data also indicate that moderate consumers are more inclined to eat a healthy diet and follow favorable drinking patterns that may contribute to these positive health outcomes. In a recent article in the Feb., 2003 Journal of Cardiovascular Risk, Gronbaek writes that the issue of different effects for the beverages "is not settled yet." He further explains," The question still remains whether the differences in morbidity and mortality are caused by the drink or the drinker."

In a Feb., 2003 Scientific American article, Klatsky summarizes the data on moderation and health and explains that, "A vexing complication of all these studies, however, is that the overall habits of wine drinkers, beer drinkers and hard liquor drinkers tend to differ greatly." He explains that in Denmark, wine drinking goes hand in hand with a healthy diet, as well as with other markers such as higher socio-economic status and higher IQ. In his California studies, on the other hand, those who preferred wine also smoked less, had more education and had temperate drinking habits.

Therefore, Klatsky has long emphasized that lifestyle differences among those who prefer one type of alcoholic beverage over another make it exceedingly difficult to determine whether the differences in apparent health effects are actually related to the beverage type itself (e.g. constituents beyond alcohol), to drinking patterns (e.g. imbibe slowly and regularly with food) or to other factors (e.g. type of consumer and lifestyle habits such as exercise).