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Wine Drinkers Good Health, Attributed To Their Lifestyle

by Medindia Content Team on Jan 21 2006 4:23 PM

A research was conducted to assess the health of the both wine and beer drinkers. It was found that the death rates among the wine drinkers were low when compared to those of beer drinkers. This was attributed to the diet consumed by both the population.

Morten Grønbæk, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues of the Danish National Institute of Public Health conducted the research in Denmark. The researchers started to survey the items bought by the Danish shoppers. Wine drinkers apart from buying the drink also included fruits, vegetables, low-fat meats and cheeses in their shopping list. In the case of beer drinkers they fell for prepared dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks. The finings o the study was reported in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers found that lifestyle played a very important role in the determination of death rates among alcohol consumers. The study noted that the wine drinkers wee more educated, wealthier and had a normal and healthier mental and physical make up.

In case of similar studies conducted in Canada the researches found that wine drinkers to be educated, healthy, lean, young/middle aged women with a moderate alcohol intake on the other hand beer drinkers were less educated, healthy young men with a higher alcohol intake. Apart from the type of alcohol, various factors such as diet, drinking patterns, smoking, exercise physical activity, education and income plays a major role in determining the mortality rates.

The researches chose 98 outlets from which the analyzed 3.5 million transactions from two large Danish supermarket chains. The research data consisted of the name, number and prices of items purchased in the supermarkets and focused only on food purchases. The researchers divided the participants into 4 categories wine-only, beer-only, mixed and non-alcohol purchasers. It was found that 5.8% bought only wine, 6.6% bought only beer with their groceries and 1.2% bought both.

It was noted that wine drinkers were inclined to the Mediterranean diets, whereas beer drinkers opted for the traditional, high cholesterol foods.

These results were compared to the results of that of the various studies conducted in the United States, Denmark and France. The results were analogous to those obtained in the present study. In conclusion the researchers said that dinking wine has its own positive effects and the result of reduced mortality can be attributed to the antioxidants present in the wine. But it is also dependant on the lifestyle, social and cultural factors of the drinker.

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