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Let us summarize the many health benefits of wine, as enumerated in this paper.
First wine as a liquid that contains alcohol also contains ethanol, which acts as a blood thinner. Hence drinking wine reduces the rate and incidence of heart disease. Wine is healthy for the heart. Second wine, especially red wine, contains polyphenols. These are a type of antioxidants that fight the rapid cell oxidation which many times leads to disease and premature death. Wine contains components that counteract cancer and other degenerative diseases.
Spirits and beer do not contain these antioxidants. In connection with these two finding, it has been found that in countries with a high meat diet that wine drinkers tend to live longer disease-free lives than do those who donÕt drink wine. While those who drink no alcohol have higher disease rates than wine drinkers they have lower cancer rates than do beer and whiskey drinkers. In terms of alcoholic beverages, wine appears to be a much healthier drink than beer or whiskey.
The phenomenon called the French Paradox supports this theory. The paradox is that the French have significantly less heart disease than Americans although they consume the same amount of saturated fat. Modern researchers suggest that this has primarily to do with consuming wine versus beer and liquor, grape based versus grain based alcohol.