Here’s What Happens When You Drink Red Wine Every Night

5 minute read

Alcohol is the Goldilocks of the nutrition world. Too much can be destructive to your health, raising your blood pressure and your risk of developing several kinds of cancer. Too little may hold you back from some of the benefits that moderate drinkers enjoy, like lower incidence of cardiovascular disease, mortality and type-2 diabetes.

The amount that’s just right, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, might be a nightly glass of wine with dinner—for some people, anyway.

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel wanted to look at how safe and effective it is for a specific group of people—those with well-controlled type-2 diabetes and who had a low risk for alcohol abuse—to drink moderately. People with type-2 diabetes are more likely than the general population to develop cardiovascular disease and have lower levels of heart-protective HDL cholesterol, the authors note.

They chose 224 people who fit this profile, and who didn’t drink wine currently, then assigned them to start drinking one of three things. At dinner, the people in the study were told to drink five ounces of one of the following beverages: mineral water, dry white wine or dry red wine. Under the guidance of dietitians, they also followed a Mediterranean diet without calorie restrictions—and kept it up for two years.

Intermittently, they took questionnaires and were subjected to follow-ups, including blood draws at the start of the study, six months in and at 24 months, so the scientists could look at biomarkers of glycemic control, lipids and liver function.

They found that the red wine drinkers had significantly increased their levels of good HDL cholesterol and had a more beneficial cholesterol ratio compared to the group that drank water. They were also the only group to experience a significant drop in components of metabolic syndrome. People who drank either red or white wine also reported better sleep quality than the group that drank water, and the researchers found no significant adverse effects with any group.

(It’s worth making it explicit that those who drank alcohol, drank just one glass per night, with meals.)

“This is what I’ve been telling people for years based on observational data,” says Dr. James O’Keefe, chief of preventive cardiology at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, who was not involved in the study. “It seems to me that my patients who drink red wine in moderation tend to do better, and this really solid gold-standard kind of research confirms our intuitions about the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol intake.”

O’Keefe wasn’t surprised that the best results came from the group drinking red wine—which had resveratrol levels 13-fold higher than the white wine, according to the study. “Partly it’s the benefits of the alcohol, but red wine also contains a lot of unique antioxidants that are hard to get other places,” O’Keefe says. And pairing it with dinner, like they did in the study, is key.

“If you have a glass of red wine with your evening meal tonight, your peak blood sugar, if you measured it an hour later, would be about 30% lower than if you hadn’t had the wine,” O’Keefe says. The post-meal spike in sugar is one of Americans’ main sources of inflammation, which contributes to everything from diabetes to dementia to heart disease and arthritis, he adds. “It makes your system more able to sop up the sugar and the calories that you’re consuming in the meal if you have a little alcohol before,” he says.

But there’s a disclaimer, of course. Drinking every day can be a “slippery slope that a lot of people can’t safely navigate,” O’Keefe says. “If they start drinking daily and they drink a bottle or two a day, that’s a disaster.”

For those who can safely imbibe, one glass of dry red wine—like pinot noir or Cannonau—with the largest meal of the day is the very best pairing, O’Keefe says. “If you’re going to drink red wine, this study is a good reminder to do it the old fashioned way: drink it with a Mediterranean meal high in vegetables and fish and lower in meat, with fruit for dessert and using olive oil. Doing it in a social, relaxed setting also goes a long way to improving health and happiness.”

QUIZ: Should You Eat This or That?

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Which is better for you: Half cup of ice cream or 3 scoops of sorbet?Getty Images (4)
Answer: A 1/2 cup of ice cream
Answer: A half cup of ice cream If you eat what you’re craving, you’re more likely to feel satisfied and eat less. And scoop for scoop sorbet contains twice the sugar with none of the filling dairy protein and fat.Getty Images (5); Gif by Mia Tramz for TIME
Which is better for you: Real butter or spray on fake butter?
Which is better for you: Real butter or spray on fake butter?Getty Images; Tara Johnson for TIME
Answer: Butter
Answer: Butter Serving size for spray butters (even low-calorie ones) are around a 1/3 second spray. What on earth does that mean? You're better off using a small amount of real butter as opposed to guessing how much you're using of the mystery melange of up to 20 ingredients.Getty Images (1); Gif by Mia Tramz for TIME
Which is better for you: A sirloin burger or a turkey burger?
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Answer: Sirloin burger Restaurant turkey burgers are often made with dark meat and the skin, so they’re not necessarily better for you (and for the record, they aren't low-fat). You can get a sirloin burger that’s 95% lean meat and gives you 20 g of protein. Just be careful with the toppings.Getty Images (1); Gif by Mia Tramz for TIME
Which is better for you: Almonds or pretzels?
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Answer: Almonds
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Which is better for you: Eggs or Special K?
Which is better for you: Special K or eggs?AP; Getty Images
Answer: Eggs
Answer: Eggs In the morning, you want a meal that will fill you up. Eggs offer protein and fat for satiety, but Special K cereal really only offers carbs and, well, air. If you want carbs to kick off the day, you're better off pairing eggs with a slice of 100% whole grain toast. Getty Images (1); Gif by Mia Tramz for TIME
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Answer: Regular salad dressing
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Which is better for you: A low fat cookie or dark chocolate?
Which is better for you: A low fat cookie or dark chocolate?Getty Images (2)
Answer: Dark chocolate “People tend to believe fat free is calorie free,” says Keri Gans, a registered dietitian in New York City. “Go for the real thing.” Fat free cookies may be lower in fat, but higher in other ingredients like sugar. Try a nice piece of dark chocolate for those antioxidants.
Answer: Dark chocolate “People believe fat free is calorie free,” says Keri Gans, a registered dietitian in New York City. “Go for the real thing.” Fat free cookies tend to be high in carbs, sugar and fake sugar. Try a nice piece of antioxidant-rich dark chocolate instead.Getty Images (2); Gif by Mia Tramz for TIME
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Answer: Low fat Greek Yogurt
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Write to Mandy Oaklander at mandy.oaklander@time.com