Science says: red wine reduces the risk of covid infection
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: if you drink red wine, you reduce the chance of a Covid infection.
What if a glass of red wine is not only very tasty, but also helps against colds and is the remedy to reduce the chance of a corona infection? According to recent research, it seems to be true. I don't know about you, but I'm pouring another glass.
The research from which these results come was conducted by a group of researchers in China from the Shenzhen Kangning hospital. They wondered if there is a link between drinking alcohol and the number of people who get infected or die from corona. The group gained access to data from the U.K. Biobank Study and analyzed health data from nearly 500,000 residents of the United Kingdom.
Wine is fine, beer is poison
And what turns out? The researchers found that when it comes to deaths, it hardly matters whether you drink a glass here and there or go completely dry through life. But when it comes to contracting a Covid infection, the numbers were remarkable. The researchers discovered that people who drank one to two glasses of red wine per day had a 10 to 17 percent lower risk of contracting Covid than non-drinkers.
People who drank red wine fell into the group with the lowest infections, while the unlucky ones with an infection were among the beer and cider drinkers and those who drank more than five glasses of spirits per week.
The advantages
And although this conclusion sounds like music to some people's ears, there are a few caveats; the U.K. Biobank focuses on people aged 49 and older. The data on drinking habits were collected before the pandemic; changes in drinking habits during the pandemic were not recorded.
But, the researchers argue, the results are not entirely illogical. Red wine has properties that lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and activate certain proteins that prevent cell death. For me, enough benefits to open a bottle of red wine. Cheers!
