Wine and weight control

Many studies concerning weight gain and loss are always being published. This study recently published is about moderate alcohol consumption and weight gain by women. It hints that alcohol in the subject's diet reduced weight gain. Once again, the supposed evil things in life may help us in moderation. It may help explain the French conundrum of eating rich foods and staying thin (French drink wine). In a prior post, I discussed how cheese has the chemical compound linoleic acid that increases a person's metabolism slightly reducing weight gain. What are the exact benefits to moderate alcohol consumption?

First of all, heavy alcohol consumption is NOT good for anyone. It leads to weight gain and other various chronic health problems. Societal problems also arise with the inability to properly function among people. Alcoholism goes down all the bad paths your mother warned you about. I condemn daily drinking of 3 or more drinks in a setting. Even more damaging to a person's body is binge drinking at 5+ drinks in one setting. We as a society should find ways to reduce such drinking.

Moderation in all things. Drinking a couple of drinks a day will not hurt you. The study linked above followed 19,220 women aged 39 and older who started with a normal body mass index or healthy body weight. The study followed these women 13 years and found:

"An inverse association between alcohol intake and risk of becoming overweight or obese was noted for all four types of alcoholic beverages [red wine, white wine, beer and liquor], with the strongest association found for red wine and a weak yet significant association for white wine after multivariate adjustment," the authors write.

Very interesting. The exact reason why is not speculated in the article. It is another study that questions the dietary orthodoxy we are often hear. We need more studies like this example.