It can help manage cholesterol and cardiac health.
Do you have diabetes? Then you may benefit from drinking a glass of red wine and not even know it.
A new study from researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev shows that drinking a glass of red wine every night can help those with type 2 diabetes to not only manage their cholesterol but their cardiac health as well.
The study also shows that both red and white wine can improve sugar control.
Researchers, who published their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine, say it's the first long-term alcohol study on what impact moderate alcohol consumption has on diabetes. They even sought to learn whether any type of wine matters to your health.
What's known is that people with diabetes are at risk of developing cardiovascular disease and have lower levels of good cholesterol. Researchers say that even though there have been observational studies in the past, any recommendations for moderate alcohol consumption for those with diabetes has been controversial.
Red wine was found to be "superior in improving overall metabolic profiles, mainly by modestly improving the lipid profile, by increasing good cholesterol (HDL) and apolipoprotein, one of the major constituents of HDL cholesterol, while decreasing the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol, researchers say.
The researchers concluded that "initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics, as part of a healthy diet, is apparently safe, and modestly decreases cardio-metabolic risk.
The researchers also found that only the slow alcohol-metabolizers who drank wine achieved an improvement in blood sugar control, while fast alcohol-metabolizers with much faster blood alcohol clearance did not benefit from the ethanol's glucose control effect.
Wine of either type did not effect change in blood pressure, liver function tests, and adiposity, researchers say. They did say sleep quality was significantly improved in both wine groups, compared with the water control group.
Researchers say 224 diabetic patients ages 45 to 75 took part in the study, and those chosen were those who generally abstained from alcohol. Wine consumption was done gradually and the study was completed within two years.
The study was performed in collaboration with Prof. Meir Stampfer from Harvard University, USA, and with colleagues from University of Leipzig, Germany and Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Researchers say participants were divided into three groups based on consumption of water, red wine and white wine. All three groups followed the Mediterranean diet.
Monitoring diabetes is important because it could be killing us right now.