Drink Up!

Somehow I ended up receiving a year's free subscription to Wine Spectator magazine. It's interesting to browse through and see what sophisticated rich people drink. Since I never spend over $10 for wine, unless it's in a box or liter size, I do not fit their typical reader profile. Also I buy wine to drink now, not to store for years in a cellar and savor for a special occasion.
This isn't to say I don't appreciate a collection of wine. If the power goes out for days I want a few bottles on hand to supplement my canned tuna and crackers emergency supply. But a cellar full of wine to say I have a cellar full of wine? That is not in my budget.
There were three interesting studies of the health benefits of drinking in the May issue of Wine Spectator. This is more up my alley and worth having the postman stuff the oversized 10"x14" glossy magazine in my mailbox.
From the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology...subjects who drank red wine while eating a high fat meal experienced lower levels of inflammation in their blood vessels than those who drank other beverages, including water! Drink Coke instead and inflammation greatly increases. The researchers do recommend avoiding high fat meals as much as possible, but the next time you go to the McDonalds drive-thru for a Big Mac and fries, take your own bottle of a nice red wine along and skip the milkshake.
In the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism journal...8,000 men aged 50-59 were monitored for years. Men who drank on a regular basis were most likely to be trim! Men who drank one or two times a week were more likely to be obese. From this study you need to drink around 15 glasses of 5ounces of wine a week.
Finally, in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension (see, this is high-fulutin research!) they found that light drinking can reduce the risk of hypertension. Women who drank a glass of wine a day decreased the risk of hypertension by 13%. Men, unfortunately, did not show as large a benefit, but showed no greater risk.
Excuse me, I have to go shopping for more wine now, Jan has been working on her own study. Drinking seems to help her cope being married to me. The article will be published soon.