This study led to expert speculation that the average wine drinker may eat healthier than the average beer drinker. A 2006 study of grocery store purchases in Denmark found that people who bought wine also tended to buy more fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods than people who bought beer. And the belief that red wine is healthier than other alcoholic beverages took root.īut beer may have gotten a bad rap. Red wine, more so than white, is packed with resveratrol. Later work zeroed in on a group of compounds found in grapes, called polyphenols-and in particular, resveratrol-as the likeliest source of wine’s ostensible health benefits.

Other research from around that time found that people who drank wine, as opposed to beer, enjoyed lower mortality risks. A 1992 study in The Lancet found evidence that drinking wine and other types of alcohol could prevent or reduce arterial blockages. Moderate wine consumption is a component of traditional Mediterranean diets, which research associates with lower rates of disease and mortality. Some called this phenomenon the “French paradox,” and they went to work figuring out an explanation. Beginning in the 1980s, researchers noticed that the French-despite typically eating a diet with lots of foods containing saturated fat and cholesterol-had lower than expected rates of heart disease and early death.

Wine or beer healthier