Rejoice! We now have a valid, documented excuse to have a glass or two of our favourite red wine tonight before bed. As well as regular (and moderate) drinking being good for your relationship, new studies have found that this little pre-bed ritual is actually good for your health too and aids weight loss.
Two separate studies, one from Washington University and the other from Harvard, found a link between regular-to-moderate alcohol consumption and a healthy body weight.
The 13-year Harvard study included 20,000 women of a healthy body weight and analysed factors such as weight gain and alcohol consumption. From the results, it was concluded that “compared with non-drinkers, initially normal weight women who consumed a light to moderate amount of alcohol gained less weight and reduced their risk of obesity.”
The study from Washington University, performed on overweight female mice, found that those that consumed an extract of resveratrol, an active ingredient in red wine, had an easier time losing weight and keeping it off. While this is not as conclusive as a human study, there’s no denying resvertarol’s “beneficial anti-obesity effects.”
So why is the red stuff so good for us? When you consume wine, and more importantly resveratrol, your body produces more “brown” fat cells. These fat cells, as opposed to white fat cells, make it easier to lose weight and keep it off.
Be warned though that this doesn’t mean we can all down a bottle-a-night. You know what they say, “everything in moderation”. Wine is also both high in sugar and in calories, and is linked to problems like liver damage if abusing alcohol becomes a long-term habit.
But a glass or two is ok and we’ll definitely be consuming guilt-free tonight thanks to this great news! The only thing we need to worry about now is the bloody wine shortage!
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