Drinking wine can have a beneficial effect on your cholesterol if you restrict your consumption to a safe limit, generally one drink a day for women and two drinks daily for men. Sticking to this amount of vino is associated with reduced LDL or "bad" cholesterol levels and higher HDL or "good" cholesterol levels, according to the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Antioxidant Action
The polyphenolic compounds in red wine, including resveratrol, flavonoids, anthocyanins and phenolic acids, all have strong antioxidant properties that block LDL cholesterol oxidation, according to a study by W.R. Leifert and M.Y. Abeywardena published in the November 2008 edition of the journal Nutrition Research. The tannins in wine also provide beneficial antioxidant action, according to a study by Cyril Auger published in the November 2005 edition of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Absorption Blocking
The tannins in wine serve another purpose. They retard intestinal cholesterol absorption, according to a K. Tebib's study in December 1994 in the Journal of Nutrition. The saponins in red wines prevent absorption of cholesterol as well by binding to cholesterol, according Andrew Waterhouse, professor of enology at the University of California Davis. His findings were presented in 2003 at American Chemical Society's national meeting.
LDL Removal
Regular consumption of wine is linked to an increase in HDL or good cholesterol levels due to the wine's alcohol. In fact, one to two drinks per day of any kind of alcohol can increase HDL levels by 12 percent, according to a 2005 article in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The extraHDL cholesterol is helpful because it aids in removing some of the LDL or bad cholesterol from circulation. This in turn reduces the amount of material that's available for forming fatty plaque.
Wine's anti-anxiety or stress-reducing effects also may have an impact on good HDL cholesterol levels, though there's no scientific data to support this hypothesis, according to a commentary by A.L. Klatsky in the 2001 International Journal of Epidemiology article, "Could abstinence from alcohol be hazardous to your health?" Findings reported by Ohio State University psychology professor Catherine Stoney find a correlation between stress and bad cholesterol. Her study linked stress to a 5 percent increase in LDL cholesterol.
"Our research suggests that psychology and physiology work together in determining cholesterol levels," Stoney told the Society of Behavioral Medicine in presenting her findings.
References
- Nutrition Research; Cardioprotective actions of grape polyphenols; Leifert, W.R., Abeywardena, M.Y.; November 2008
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry; Polyphenols-Enriched Chardonnay White Wine and Sparkling Pinot Noir Red Wine Identically Prevent Early Atherosclerosis in Hamsters; Cyril Auger et al.; November 2005
- Journal of Nutrition; Dietary grape seed tannins affect lipoproteins, lipoprotein lipases and tissue lipids in rats fed hypercholesterolemic diets; Tebib, K. et al., ; December 1994
