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DANISH STUDY CONFIRMS WINE'S HEALTH BENEFITS

COPENHAGEN-The health benefits of regular, moderate wine consumption were recently confirmed by a major Danish study which showed that subjects who consumed wine daily were much less likely to die during the 12-year study period than non-drinkers or consumers of other alcoholic beverages. Financed by the Danish National Board of Health, the Copenhagen Heart Study involved more than 13,000 men and women aged 30 to 70 who were monitored between 1976 and 1988.

The results of the study, published in the British Medical Journal, indicated that daily wine consumers had half the risk of dying compared with those who never drank wine. In addition, the study found the largest benefit-a 49% decrease in total mortality-was associated with people who consumed 3 to 5 glasses of wine daily, while consumers of 1 to 3 glasses had a 30% decrease, compared with people who never drank wine. The subjects were controlled for gender, age, education, income, smoking, weight, and other factors.

The Copenhagen Heart Study differed from other major studies in that it did not find life-prolonging benefits from drinking other forms of alcohol, nor did it find health benefits beginning to diminish above three glasses of wine per day. Cross-cultural analyses have reported that countries with high per capita wine consumption have lower rates of heart disease, but this is one of the first in-depth beverage-specific studies within a non-Mediterranean country to find such strong evidence of wine's beneficial effects.

The study was conducted by Morten Gronbaek and his colleagues at the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Institute of Preventive Medicine at Copenhagen Hospital. The researchers suggest that certain substances and properties unique to wine, such as tannins and flavonoids which act as antioxidants, may be a key factor in the protective effects of wine. They also attribute a 30% overall decline in coronary heart disease mortality in Denmark during the past 15 years to a dramatic increase in wine consumption since 1976, due to the opening of the European market. In 1975, wine consumption represented only 17.3% of total alcohol consumption, compared with 30.2% in 1992.

The Copenhagen Heart Study strongly confirms the health benefits of regular, moderate wine consumption with food cited by many other scientific and medical studies which are monitored by the Sub commission on Nutrition and Health of the Office International de la Vigne et duVin (OIV) in Paris. However, OIV officials caution that the level of 3 to 5 glasses per day observed in the Copenhagen study should not been seen as a recommendation, nor should wine be viewed as a medicine but rather as a food to accompany other foods. For the vast majority of the human population, moderate wine consumption with food does provide significant health benefits in addition to enhancing the taste of the food and overall ambiance of the meal. However, the abuse and misuse of wine or other alcoholic beverages should be strongly discouraged, and persons in certain risk categories should avoid wine or other beverages containing alcohol altogether.