Guest Post: Wine & Your Health

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. Last week, David Lazarus offered a post and today, we get healthy with his wife, Jan Lazarus. Jan is a registered dietitian with a specialization in diabetes. This is timely, considering all the comments we get on our Slender wine posts. Thanks Jan!
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Being a dietitian and diabetes educator I receive many questions on the use of alcohol. Since this is a wine blog I will focus on my attention to the consumption of wine and its benefits and detriments.

The one myth that I really would like to debunk is the number of carbohydrates in a glass of wine. On average a 5-ounce glass of dry wine contains 110 calories, 5 grams of carbohydrates and 13 grams of alcohol which accounts for 91 of the 110 calories. It is extremely frustrating to attend a function and overhear someone talking about falling off the low-carb diet wagon while having a glass of wine. This is a perception created by a good marketing firm.

Wine or any alcohol is metabolized in the body as a fat not a sugar; that is why excess drinking can add extra pounds of fat even when you are consuming a low-fat diet. Wine is fermented and does contain some residual sugar, but a very small amount.

There are positive attributes to wine especially red wine. This wine contains components that can increase your good cholesterol “HDL” and it also acts as an anti-coagulant preventing platelets to stick together and decreasing the chance of blood clots. On the flip side, over-consumption can lead to high blood pressure and increased triglycerides, not a good fat.

For those with diabetes, alcohol actually lowers the blood sugar for up to 10 hours. This can result in a hypoglycemic state especially if they haven't eaten or are on certain medications. But this is not the recommended method for controlling blood sugar, I have had clients who have tried with unfortunate outcomes.

Now how much is a drink? Women should only have 5 ounces of wine per day and men no more than 10 ounce per day. (No, you cannot save them up and have them all in one day. I get that question a lot.) Moderate drinking can be very beneficial to your health, but when you go over the daily recommendations then the detrimental effects may occur. The key to remember is, too much of a good thing is never good.

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Posted by Michelle at 8:30 am in Guest Writers, Knowledge | Permalink | Comments (1)

One Response to “Guest Post: Wine & Your Health”

anna says:

July 15, 2009 at 12:09 am

wine is not good for everybody and I learned the hard way. Blood pressue went sky high and it wasn’t until I stopped drinking wine all together that it finally went back to normal. This is something that should be mentioned!