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Moderate Wine Consumption Can Help Diabetics

Moderate Wine Consumption Can Help Diabetics

October 30, 2015

Medical Research

The Jewish Star — A glass of red wine every night may help people with type 2 diabetes manage their cholesterol and cardiac health, according to new findings from a two-year randomized controlled trial (RCT) led by researchers at BGU.

Additionally, both red and white wine can improve sugar control, depending on alcohol metabolism and genetic profiling.

This study, published in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine, aimed to assess the effects and safety of initiating moderate alcohol consumption in diabetics, and to determine whether the type of wine matters.

Iris Shai

Prof. Iris Shai

“Initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics as a part of a healthy diet is apparently safe, and modestly decreases cardio-metabolic risk,” says principal investigator of the trial Prof. Iris Shai, of BGU’s Department of Public Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

“The differences found between red and white wine were opposed to our original hypothesis that the beneficial effects of wine are mediated predominantly by the alcohol,” says Prof. Shai.

She goes on to explain,“Approximately 150ml of the dry red or white tested wines contained about 17g ethanol and about 120kCal (kilocalories), but the red wine had sevenfold higher levels of total phenols and four to 13-fold higher levels of the specific resveratrol group compounds than white wine.

“The genetic interactions suggest that ethanol plays an important role in glucose metabolism, while red wine’s effects additionally involve non-alcoholic ingredients.”

The two-year CArdiovaSCulAr Diabetes and Ethanol (CASCADE) randomized controlled intervention trial was performed on 224 controlled diabetes patients (ages 45 to 75), who generally abstained from alcohol. They gradually initiated moderate wine consumption, as part of a healthy diet platform.

Read more on The Jewish Star website >>