If you are one of the many people that are worried about health (and lets face it, who isn’t?) you might start looking at your daily intake of sweets, fats and alcohol.  But, the one thing you don’t have to worry about on this list is alcohol, specifically red wine.  In fact, drinking red wine is healthy. Wine has all sorts of benefits you might not be aware of.  Red wine has a variety of ingredients in it that helps to boost your health and help with things like diabetes, brain function and even preventing colon cancer in men.  Red wine includes an ingredient called polyphenols which includes proanthocyanidin.  Despite the scary name this ingredient is one of if not THE most powerful antioxidant available and it’s all natural and found in wine! 

Researchers have done some experiments with red wines and found that some wines can have even more antioxidants than foods and drinks like blueberries, acai and grape juice.  Acai has long since been touted as being the most powerful antioxidant, but red wine took the stats right over on that one.  Antioxidants are beneficial because they slow down aging, reduce the risk of some heart disease issues and can also help with some forms of cancer.  That doesn’t mean you should go drinking from the till every hour though!

Scientist found that men should have 2 glasses of red wine and women should have 1 glass of wine to get the health benefits of red wine.  Here are a few ways in which red wine and those antioxidants can make you healthier, more energetic and more alert.

• Heart Healthy:  Red wine not only contains proanthocyanidin, but resveratrol as well.  This is considered to be a powerful antioxidant compound in helping with the health benefits of red wine.  This ingredients acts as a barrier against the effects of saturated fat in your diet and helps protect your heart as well as your arteries.  Other ingredients like flavonoids and sapponins also help keep your heart healthy by protecting it against cardiovascular disease.  The alcohol itself in red wine can raise HDL levels and prevent blood clots in your arteries.
• Antioxidants:  As mentioned above, other health benefits of red wine are the ability to keep you safe from degenerative diseases like type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis.  This is especially true in the elderly and people who drinks 1-2 glasses of wine daily.
• Cancer:  In moderation, red wine is said to prevent cancer.  It can also prevent other diseases such as aging, Alzheimer’s and lung cancer believe it or not.  Researchers have found that the resveratrol in red wine, the same ingredient that helps protect your heart can actually kill cancerous cells inside the body.
• Tooth Decay:  Even if red wine (alcohol) doesn’t seem interesting to you, you can also drink red wine alcoholic or non-alcoholic to prevent tooth decay, gum disease and also helps with issues with gum diseases.

In case you were wondering; antioxidants are measured in everything. Most antioxidant rich foods will be measured using a method called ORAC.  This stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.  Every single food item has the ability to absorb free radicals.   ORAC scores range from a measly 50 for a carrot on up to a whole 5200 for something like cinnamon.

• Full Bodied Red Wine: 7,700 for about 6 oz glass
• Blueberries: 6500 for one cup
• Acai Juice: 3,030 for a 6 oz glass
• Cooked Tomatoes: 1,250 for 1 cup

This leaves little argument that wine is healthy for you and carries the most health benefits between ‘super foods’. So go ahead, plan your next dinner party and crack open that bottle.  Doctors orders!

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