Study: Drink Wine To Keep Mind Intact
Wine May Lower Risk Of Dementia
Drinking wine is good for your heart, and a new study found that it might also be good for your mind.
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In the study, people who drank wine weekly or monthly were more than two times less likely to develop dementia in the study.
"These results don't mean that people should start drinking wine or drink more wine than they usually do," said study author Dr. Thomas Truelsen, of the Institute of Preventive Medicine at Kommunehospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"But the results are exciting because they could mean that substances in wine reduce the occurrence of dementia," he said. "If that's the case, we could potentially develop treatments or prevention methods based on these substances."
Researchers looked at the drinking patterns for wine, beer and liquor of 1,709 people in Copenhagen in the 1970s and then assessed them for dementia in the 1990s, when they were age 65 or older.
They found that those who drank wine were more than two times less likely to develop dementia than those who drank other types of alcohol. Those who drank wine every day were no more or less likely to develop dementia than those who drank it more or less often.
Not only does beer not protect the mind, but it actually harms it, according to the study's results. People who drank beer monthly were more than two times more likely to develop dementia than those who never or hardly ever drank beer.
So how does this particular alcoholic beverage work to save your mind? Researchers said the benefits may be due to flavonoids, natural compounds that have an antioxidant effect. Red wine is high in flavonoids. Other studies have suggested that flavonoids may account for a lower occurrence of stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases among wine drinkers.
The researchers said the study is limited in that eating habits of the participants were not assessed.
"Research suggests that wine drinkers may have better dietary habits than beer and liquor drinkers," said neurologist John Brust, of Harlem Hospital Center in New York, NY. "Nonetheless, this is a provocative report providing evidence that there is indeed something specifically beneficial about wine."
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