Nonalcoholic red wine reduces blood pressure

Nonalcoholic red wine was associated with a greater reduction in blood pressure than regular red wine in a new study.

The researchers, led by Dr Gemma Chiva-Blanch (University of Barcelona, Spain), conclude that the polyphenols found in red wine are the likely mediators of the blood-pressure reduction and that alcohol appears to weaken their antihypertensive effect.

They suggest that daily consumption of nonalcoholic red wine may be useful for the prevention of mild to moderate hypertension.

For the study, published online in Circulation Research on September 6, 2012, 67 men at high cardiovascular risk were randomized into three four-week treatment periods in a crossover clinical trial. Each participant followed a common background diet and also drank red wine (30 g alcohol/day), the equivalent amount of dealcoholized red wine, or gin (30 g alcohol/day). Blood pressure and plasma nitric-oxide (NO) concentration were measured at baseline and between each intervention. The men were moderate alcohol consumers before the study, but they abstained from drinking any alcohol for a two-week run-in period at the start of the study.

Results showed that both systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly after the dealcoholized red wine intervention, and these changes correlated with increases in plasma NO. During the red-wine phase, the men had a small reduction in blood pressure and a small increase in NO, while there was no change in blood pressure and a small reduction in NO while drinking gin.

The researchers note that although the blood-pressure reduction associated with nonalcoholic red wine was modest, reductions of this magnitude have been associated with a 14% decrease in coronary heart disease and 20% reduction in stroke risk.


Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/770508?src=nldne