The incredible health benefits of wine

Past generations and cultures knew very well that a little bit of wine was good for them, medicinal even. But somehow the message these days is that it’s toxic and to be avoided at all costs.
In this video I talk to medical research journalist, Tony Edwards, the author of “The very good news about wine” about his far ranging research into the subject. You will be amazed at how beneficial moderate amounts of wine actually are.

I did a previous um video on some very good news about wine uh with Dr Zoe Harkin but today I have Tracked Down the actual author of this book and I am today speaking to Tony Edwards about his book that has certainly put a little spring in my Step so Tony um so Tony you are a medical research journalist uh you write a lot about a lot of science issues and in particular medical issues and I see position behind you as your book and I’ve got a very Dogge eared version of your book here the very good news about

Wine now as I said I did speak to Dr Zoe harkcom who you actually acknowledge in the book um but I I’ve since since that time I’ve now read your book and I was absolutely gobsmacked gobsmacked at how we have been told such a different story and gobsmacked at the incredible health benefits

So let’s let’s start with that let’s start with that so as a woman um I I myself was becoming very concerned about the fact that you know there’s saying that there is no level of alcohol consumption that’s really safe in regards to cancer I mean you know

Cancer’s is banded about quite a lot when it comes to drinking and you go into this in great detail in your book and you literally go through every single cancer there is so could you just talk us through what your findings were and how you came to these findings what

Your process is in the book to come to the conclusions you come to well that the book um I don’t come to the conclusions I simply report what I read in the medical press so this is not a personal view it’s actually my assessment of the evidence which I’ve

Gone through in some detail and one can do that these days with a thing called Google scolar and Google scol allows you to look at literally millions of scientific papers for free all over the world going back to the 1850s it’s extraordinary resource so am just amazing and I mean Google’s got some

Things want to criticize them for but not for that and obviously cost them a bit of money but they give it to the world for free and so it makes my life extremely easy and the first book I did about alcohol I had to go to the medical

Uh libraries myself and look at you know Dusty old Toms and it was very difficult and to do lots of photocopying but now it’s you gu that’s right you wrote another book um the good news about alcohol is that right good news about booze good news about bo boo right with

The news and booze fighting for the Ching for position right so then this is called why called this was the very good news about wine so I just continued the same metaphor as it were right so yes um so back to your question I agree with

You totally that we are lied to by the authorities and it was my first book I couldn’t believe like you couldn’t believe how much value and how how beneficial alcohol really is and um it’s very paradoxical because obviously we know if you have too much alcohol it’ll

Make you really ill if you’re a child you drink a bottle of wine if you’re a 10-year-old child you’ll die sorry bottle of whiskey I beg your pardon bottle of whiskey you probably die because it’s highly toxic and the thing about alcohol is it’s rather like a a medical

Drugs you’ve got to use the stated dose you know when you buy something get something on prescription it says do not exceed the stated dose right because at a certain point it start the side effects start to kind of kick in right and you will get so alcohol is not no

It’s only a paradox in the sense that a lot of it will obviously kill you but a little of it will do you huge amounts of good that’s very interesting because I mean a lot of people say it is it like a cytotoxin uh you know you we use alcohol

To kill things and to kill why doesn’t it kill us yeah it doesn’t kill us if we it will kill us if we drink too much of it obviously but a small amount of alcohol dos extraordinary things and uh particularly it was in heart diseases that was first found because um it’s

Been know studies you know what you mention in the book about the benefits that the prevention of heart disease is absolutely staggering it is okay tell tell us what it does and how it uh and you know and let’s let’s just remind ourselves that heart disease is the

Number one killer in the world is it not absolutely yeah so so tell us tell us a bit about that then well with heart disease it’s discovered first about 50 or 60 years ago people suddenly started noticing people who didn’t drink yes more heart disease than people who did

Drink and then this was done um did a proper study by a guy called Richard do do who a guy who discovered the com the connection between smoking and lung cancer and he used a cohort of doctors as his guinea pigs t thousand doctors and he thought oh well I proved that uh

Lung cancer is CA by caused by smoking let’s move on to booze I’m sure that’ll cause some last year St by the reverse you found the doctors these were all GPS or whatever the doctors who didn’t drink died sooner of heart disease than doctors who did drink well you know it’s

Funny because I have always read I don’t know where but for a very long time which was which seemed you know the opposite of what they were saying is that tea tolers are not as healthy as people who drink moderately and that’s something I’ve heard for years so that would seem to be

True he found it certainly and the strange thing was although we now all know about uh smoking and lung cancer and it’s on the back side of cigarette packets nobody talked about doll study that he found with alcohol it was just completely wasn’t suppressed it was published but nobody talked about it so

There’s there’s been good news and they would want to talk about it I know you would as you say it’s number one heart disease number one killer in the world yes you think what whatever you can do to reduce heart disease why not do it oh

No how does it help how how does drinking and and in in the your book you’re exclusively talking about wine which seems to from I’m gathering from what you say in the book that wine seems to be the most beneficial of all alcohols it is red wine red wine in

Particular because it combines the benefits of alcoh alol I mean alcohol on its own will also reduce heart disease I mean doll found that these these doctors were drinking every kind of alcohol you know so it it uh but so but wine adds a certain punch a huge punch because of

The polyphenols in the grapes and that’s what gives wine at color so what does it do to help your heart specifically it reduces atherosclerosis in particular there furd up arteries uh it reduces H it reduces LDL CH cholesterol increases HDL the good cholesterol wow uh it it acts as a

Vasodilator which is what people people take vasodilator pills to reduce blood pressure right and it reduces homoy and lots of other inflammatory markers well that’s that’s incredible that’s incredible so by having a glass of red wine you’re less likely to get furred up arteries and your cholesterol will

Improve it will yeah well let’s go what let’s let’s go on to the subject of cancer which is is probably the biggest one I think you give the most time to that because you you go through all the different kinds of cancers and I I realize that’s quite a hard one to talk

About because they’re all slightly different but um and I can’t remember the specific ones but there were in some cases it also had a preventative effect for certain cancers and I think you said in the book that actually beat any kind kind of medication that exists it was more

Preventative and helpful than actual medications did you say that in regards to i i in some things yeah certainly there are three or five or six minor cancers that it prevents right thyroid um kidney and all the blood cancers like lymphomas and so on all of those are prevented significantly

Prevented wow that well that is just absolutely incredible and I just want to reiterate what you said before is that this is not your opinion this is you um going through all the data all the research and doing meta a metaanalysis whereby because obviously some studies will be positive some will be negative

But you put them all together am I right in thinking that gives you a meta analysis which is is basically the average of all of them the finding on average of all of them put together is that correct yeah where meta analyses have been done I I include those but I

Also include individual studies where wine itself has come out looking really favorable right but I’ve been honest with the reader I’ve said you know this is where you know individual studies show for example in breast cancer now breast cancer is a big one for women and something we are told that

I was quite frightened of so tell us what it’s a very big one I mean the French uh the French of found um and the Danes the French and the Danes are quite big researchers on this both the French and the Danes have found that drinking

Red wine will not give you breast cancer and in some cases will prevent death breast cancer now that is an extraordinary statement to make well it certainly is when they’ve been telling us that drinking can give you breast cancer which is obviously a great and you know

It’s something that’s been on my mind because I like I I mean I don’t drink that much but I do like a glass of wine but I’ve been feeling increasingly guilty um about drinking my wine I think you know why am I drinking this I could

Give myself breast can and you know and I didn’t this year because I’d read your book but last year I did dry January you I’m thinking now what for I mean I wasn’t myself any health favors here was did you feel any better well do you know

What’s interesting is as I’ve got older I can only tolerate less one wine so I do drink you know I I I I’m drinking less than I did before because it doesn’t seem to agree with me that much and I’m a I’m a great um believer in

Listening to your body I totally agree and um so I would say that I’m probably a one glass a day one glass feels quite good to me if I have more than that if I have two glasses I I I’m very prone to Hangovers now so I I can you know I can

Feel very headachy with two glasses of wine and sometimes even with one glass so I think as you get older maybe your body doesn’t process it as well that’s certainly true women post sorry I’m do personal but post metal pause of women do have this problem they they’re all of

My friends I’ve one of women friends they all say the same thing do they yeah and it’s because I not quite sure I don’t think anybody’s actually looked at the mechanism of it but it’s it is a well-known fact no of course they haven’t because it’s a female issue they

Haven’t anyway but the as you say my my longest chapters about cancer because it is obviously the most important yes that we’re talking about and there’s no doubt that if you drink a huge amount of alcohol you will increase your risk of cancer certain cancers um the ones that’s most worry

About are the throat mouth and gullet cancers yes because that’s where alcohol hits you first right and the body has no protection against the toxicity of alcohol in that situation right those are the most common cancers that you could get from alcohol yeah they’re not they’re not they’re not very common cancers anyway

But they they are the biggest ones that you they are the biggest risk factor for drinking and also if you smoke the combination of the tobacco smoke with alcohol act synergistically to produce an even more toxic blend which does your does your they’re no good at all however

Once the alcohol has gone down your into your stomach enzymes start breaking down the alcohol instantly so it you know the stomach knows what to do with it because perhap you didn’t know this but when we digest food that produced a little bit of alcohol in the stomach so the body

The body has produced its own way of detoxifying that stuff which is why when we come to drink alcohol we it knows what to do with it right right interesting that that is that is very interesting yeah so that’s you’re saying that’s why we have these enzymes that’s

Why we have the enzy we have an alcoholic effect and breaking down food so the body naturally produced enzymes to break down alcohol correct yeah so that is the worst those three here M they’re called head and neck cancers in the trade so so mouth um mouth gullet

And throat right esophagus so those would be the most common ones to get as a result of drinking correct but you say they’re not very common so so if you do have if you have a glass of wine a day are you at higher risk of getting those no you’re at lower risk

Actually oh you are at lower risk I don’t understand what do you mean well because I don’t know but the wine certainly has some kind of protective effect again you mean you’re drinking wine so it’s it’s other alcohols yeah wine is defin there’s what was called a

J curve because the graph of what I’m getting a bit too technical here am I but there a the graph of what’s what’s what is good for you kind of yes goes goes down the risk goes down the more you drink and then as you drink more the

Risk goes up and it looks like a j right so uh so so what you’re saying is if you only have a small amount small amount wine like one glass a day then you’re not you’re you’re you have a protective quality but protective these on even these ones yeah oh wow that’s

Extraordinary but so how much of wine would you have to drink a day for this to become a risk over a bottle over a bottle and you nowhere near that no do you know what I I couldn’t I could not take a bottle now

I I I think back to my 40s when I said yeah I could put away a few glasses of wire just I’m such a lightweight now um so so right so that’s very interesting so and and and and just to reiterate what you absolutely say in the book you

Are talking about moderate drinking we are not sitting here encou you’re not encouraging people to go whoa I have as much wine as you want we’re talking about moderate drinking although there are many instas in the book that also surprised me um where you found that even large amounts um were still

Beneficial or not harmful but you know we’ll leave that as side let let’s stick to moderate drinking um right so cancer heart disease now I was amazed at this one diabetes yes it actually helps prevent because you know everyone says oh but you know wine has got sugar in it so how

Can it help with diabetes because it reduces insulin resistance wow and insulin resistance is to do with glucose metabolism and the more you drink the more ins the less insulin resistance you have wow so so this is well this is one where if you drink a lot it’s going to even be better

For you not so good on other facets but but when it comes to insulin resistance yes so it can actually help prevent yeah and again there is a bit of a J curve in this and it’s a little the data is a bit sort of fuzzy on this but

Obviously with diabetes you shouldn’t drink more than about half a bottle of wine a day right above that the protective effect where where way right right so I mean as you say the whole book is talking about moderate drinking and what it does is Define what

Moderate drinking is on the basis of all the studies that it cites and all the studies I I say in each of the studies this is how much is the moderate and where where the where the I’m going to ask you about that in a second but I

Just want to ask you one more question about diabetes so it can help because it it it it it works on insulin uh resistance it can it can help prevent you getting diabetes but what if you have diabetes would it be beneficial to have some red

Wine if you have it that’s a good question in fact it’s a correct question and the answer is yes uh studies I wonder how many doctors would agree with you I know that’s what I say in the book I say why the hell don’t they right red wine for diabetics there’s big long

Studies done in Israel on this very very topic right where they and they’ve given very small amounts of wine even less than the amount you drink a day and they find that it helps diabetes it helps manage it if you have it manage it yeah yeah because I mean I haven’t

Seen I mean I know they tell you obviously you diabetes you can’t have sugars you can’t have everything and I just I wonder and I don’t know is wine on the list of the things that you can’t have it is it is I’m just remember yes

It is because in the diabetic chapter I show how diabetics who disobeyed doctor’s orders and carried on drinking were healthier than the ones who obey doctor’s orders I just remember that b oh well is that just I call them the goody goodies against the up yours okay

Now this is an interesting one and this is a big subject because you know the the figures of people getting dementia are so huge but it’s also protective against dementia yeah this is very very strange and but it’s very very true the first people to find this were the swedes and

They have a very good uh medical research database at women over a period of about 35 5 years and seeing what their drinking habits were and the first studies showed that when they got to about 70 or 80 they then looked at the DAT to see who who died of who had got

Dementia and they found remarkably that there’s a 75% reduction in dementia risk amongst wine drinkers compared to non-wine drinkers to non-drinkers in I mean that’s unbelievable that is unbelievable and it’s interesting actually that it was conducted in Sweden because I think they’re a bit like the Brits I think the

Swedes do like a drink don’t they yeah that’s obviously a very long-term study yeah so wow and and and any any um understanding of why that would be oh animal studies where they’ve looked at mice mouse brains know they actually can actually feed wine to mice they they put it in the water

Supply things I know I do object to bit of wine is quite nice for them really some work done in New York uh where they gave them something some Californian wine or something for all their lives and then they opened their brains up and they didn’t have the amalo Betto

Amid plaqu associated with Alzheimers wow you know I think that’s a kind of tick yes so really so so let’s just think about this so if you have if you’re getting on a bit and you know obviously as people get older you know um you know many people become who

Haven’t been their whole life you know by the time you get to your 70s diabetes actually becomes very common or pre-diabetes um obviously dementia is a constant fear because I think the figures on our they say like one in two people will get it or something crazy I don’t know if

That’s if it’s one and three or one and two um and of course cancer is a huge worry and you know those figures seem to be going up so really a glass of red wine a day if you don’t have any of those it’s G to help prevent get cancer diabetes and

Dementia I mean it’s absolutely and heart disease and heart disease it’s absolutely extraordin and actually they’ve also I’m talking about old people theyve do a number of studies on old people themselves and they’ve shown there’s a thing called successful aging the medical term other words can you get

Through your old age still being able to sort of you know walk and talk and do all the washing up and all that kind of stuff and uh they’ve shown that people who drink very modest amounts have more successful aging than people who don’t drink well they talk now about um our

Health span as opposed to our lifespan don’t they yes yeah because you know what’s the point of you know living for ages if you’re sick for for all of it so yeah it’s the health span and um never forget one of my best friends her French

Grandmother and I just loved it I mean she lived well into her 90s yeah and she she ended up in American her but I just my memory of her is just always sitting there and she would never go for a day without a glass of wine but always with

A meal always meal and that was it just just the one glass and it always has stuck with me and I went to France a lot as a kid and I was went saying with French families and children were given a little glass of wine with water in it

And that’s just to encourage them to in this good healthy habit I loved it never had one before but there was one and um okay so so those are the big things that helps a big thing yeah but but there are some other things and another very very important thing is the

Gut and that that you know we all now know that the microbiome in the gut is connected to the brain it’s connected to immune uh system it it’s vitally important I mean the gut is the absolute trend of the day isn’t it everybody’s going got so um you say that you know

Red wine in particular is like a Prebiotic what I say I report rep yes correct correct it’s important to get that right you’re just like you’re just like zeri Haron because when I do videos with her she goes this is not and I’ve got one coming out very

Soon with her that’s gonna blow people’s mind she’s going this is not my opinion this is what the data says this is what the science says and because you said this is not your opinion this is what the data and all the studies showed so it’s very good for your gut and what’s

Really interesting too about the gut uh is that when you compare real wine with fake alcohol-free wine yes that that has no beneficial effects on the gut at all so made even if it’s made from grape Yeah well yeah all fake it is interesting so there something about there’s something about the

Syy of alcohol and the grape juice that creates this extraordinary kind of health benefit and they’ve done know loads of studies on comparing fake and real wine and they all come out in real Wine’s favor all of them to a man so it must be the fermentation it must be the

Fermentation process it it must be something like that and we know that fermented foods are good for us don’t we especially good for our gut well that’s that’s a good Point yeah I havn’t thought of that you’re right so um so so that’s amazing and I’m just trying to

Think of the other things you mentioned I think you mentioned ah now this will interest people so people associate um alcohol generally and wine with weight gain but once again you found that that was not the case what got me interested in alcohol in the first place was this issue of

Alcohol calories and weight I was doing some research on calories and I discovered that actually although alcohol is very high in calories almost as high as fat it doesn’t put on weight it’s on based on the on lots of experiments with human beings and even more experiments with animals again the

Laboratory rat and it’s wonder why that is because the the the body cannot well I think the reason is the calorie theory is rubbish anyway we our friend joint friends hark things too yes yes yeah it’s a whole other subject we won’t get into it but

The bottom line is is I think you say every um you know alcohol will not make you gain weight other than beer a beer will make you gain weight because it contains MTO and if you know about the glycemic index yes yes molto is very high is it’s

Extremely high anything with a nose on the end is a form of sugar molto sucrose glucose they’re all forms of sugar Mol very high because sugar very high on the glycemia why people get a beer gut isn’t it beer belly and you don’t such things

Of wine B okay so we we’ve talked about all these wonderful health benefits are there any other health benefits you’d like to just mention yes one uh sex oh yes yeah good one for particularly for men all right get them going does it it keeps them going yeah although most

Men would say that’s the wor the case but actually the data says that it isn’t that the prostrate good for again men issue arthritis very good for arthritis the common cold gall stones Mac kidney stones macular degeneration of the eyes cataracts and teeth and teeth and gums that’s a whole

Chapter on that absolutely extraord well obviously if anybody’s watching this this book is so worth a read because you can read about all of this in great detail and I will uh list a lot of this on my website I’ll do a follow-up article about this as well so um yes I

Wanted to ask you about um organic wines I’m I’m quite an organic girl I actually started trying to eat completely organically uh which was impossible in the late 1980s so I’ve really gone an organic route for many many years and and I have often drunk organic wines not

Always obviously because you’re out and you you know not everybody has organic wines um so can you tell us do you think there is a difference and a benefit from drinking organic wines as opposed to Conventional wines well I don’t again it’s not my opinion it’s the what the evidence says

Yes the evidence says the that there’s been a big study done in the States on organic wines now they’re very different in the states organic wines are not allowed to contain sulfide a certain amount organic as in the in the EU nobody gives a damn about Suites

There a very big difference and the they did a survey of the uh double of the double blind Sor the blind tastings that these that a number of wine experts did on on wines and organic wines and they found that although they didn’t know they were drinking organic wines they

Rated them all higher than ordinary wines only about four only about 4% % higher but still right they didn’t know what they were drinking you they didn’t it was was way it was a retrospective study anyway the quality was better The Taste was better yeah but um the

Important thing about organic wies is they don’t have pesticides in that’s the major thing in my view yes well that’s the whole point of of eating organically and and in fact Vines do have a tremendous huge amounts of pesticides tremendous am ptici unbelievable there are so many things

That can destroy Vines and sort of fungus disease insects and so on and they ordinary wines are spreaded as much as 25 times a year wow a year wow that is amazing uh so I mean that’s obviously the major from a consumer’s point of view the major benefit of organic you

Also mention biodynamic wines which is this you know this old been going for about 100 years and planting on the lunar cycle and all that sort of thing so how did those shape up in the data the biodynamic wines they shape up no differently from organic wine in other

Words but the thing is that they cost huge amount of thing of money to to produce these things very labor intensive and it’s got this huge amounts of work on to sort of cultivate The Vines and they cost an awful lot of money and a lot of big companies are

Going in that direction so I thought I’m bound to find some benefit So when you say no benefit you mean in terms of quality and taste correct Health are they any healthier are they better it’s as good as organic but you pay much much more for it and

The producer pays huge amounts more for it too so I can’t see is biodynamic organic as well oh yeah it is it’s it’s it’s super organic it’s super organic super duper organic oh I see I see okay um but the quality was no better no better H very surprising more expensive

And more expensive yeah but I mean there are lots of big names in the wine industry are going by it’s are very fashionable thing to go into so as I said it’s very expensive so I don’t really understand they must have thought there was something in it and I thought

There was something in it too but when the evidence says there isn’t the other thing I’d like to ask you about are sulfites so aren they I mean they’re they’re not meant to be good for you they’re preservatives aren’t they they’re preservatives and aren’t they what give you the headache hang well I

Will go into this in a little bit of detail in the book um I don’t have a SFI problem myself so it’s and I know some people do but it turns out that that there are very few people or people who tend to be asmatic have this problem but

Not you and me well not ordinary people non- asmatics so the um you know we talked about what um and I did talk about uh this in my video with Zoe but um she was pointing out um what moderate drinking entails and it was absolutely astonishing because you know we think

We’ll moderate as one glass a day we’re being led to believe if that um but actually it’s it’s much higher than that isn’t it the evidence says that moderate drinking for a man is two3 of a bottle of wine a day and a woman one3 of a

Bottle of nne a day that’s moderate right that’s how many glasses would that be couple of glasses two big ones two big ones right well that’s more than enough for me I have to say um so now okay so let to conclude I I just don’t understand why we it feels like we’ve

Been misled on the effect of alcohol and and and I’m going to mention something that I just couldn’t believe in your book and that was the Cambridge research team findings in 2018 where you state they literally lied the whole team lied about what they found so just tell us what happened

There there was a very big study where they pulled together um the results from about half a million people and uh they came up with the conclusion alol is very dangerous for you and had no heart benefits but they had because it was huge amount of data they had a very

Alcohol was dangerous and has no har that was their their findings yeah yeah but they had a huge appendix because they had so much data to and there’s pages and pages of appendix within which was a graph yes which showed exactly the same as the J curve graph that I show in

The book at low levels of alcohol intake you get big heart disease benefits and which gradually tail off the more you the more you drink and that was never mentioned in the paper the whole paper’s a complete lie wow but but but you know I I I just why why would they lie

Because the right Guist is that alcohol is bad and that we’re all going to become alcoholics and and drop dead tomorrow and also beat up husbands so how does that agenda who does that benefit because it’s not going to benefit all the wine makers and you know

And England actually has a very burgeon burgeoning you know wine growing um uh indust economy now yeah so so so this seems to me very counterproductive for the economy and I just don’t because I always think I always say follow the money there’s an agenda but I don’t

Understand this agenda do you I think the agenda is kind of totalitarian one to put it very strongly authoritarian one that they the authorities don’t like to see people enjoying themselves and also and they the they the um the whole attitude they can’t get people to understand the basic Paradox

Of alcohol at high doses it’s bad low doses it’s good and they don’t think people will understand that so over the years they’ve been gradually reducing guidelines and saying ultimately uh drinking is as dangerous as smoking uh completely reverse and that’s their agenda that is where they’re

Heading and that’s why I wrote the book to stop them heading in this direction and say oi you know this is a brick in the wall how could it be that they are actually well-intentioned but they just think we’re all stupid so they’re treating us like children gang well

They’ll never get the Nuance that if you have this everybody will just drink too much and then everybody will die so we’ll just tell them that do you think it it could just be them being patronized precisely that precisely that well I’m very glad you wrote this book because um

You know I myself you have great interest in health I’m always reading stuff and researching stuff and I I was you know my little modest amounts of wine I was becoming quite concerned because I was believing it and I happened to see an article about your book somewhere and I immediately

Contacted Zoe and I said Zoe do you happen to know cuz I was always go to Zoe because I think she knows everything you know could this possibly be true she said it’s absolutely true and I know Tony you know let’s talk about it and I just it’s it’s just been an eye

Openening experience and it just goes to show that one should always be skeptical about everything and one should just do a little more research and and I am very very fortunate in doing my ageless interviews where I get to speak to people like you

And I get to speak to experts and I get to speak to people like Zoe who are able to read research papers and analyze them correctly and point out where they are misleading and where they are not um necessarily quite telling the truth so um you know this this is fantastic and

It certainly has inspired me and my husband doesn’t even like drink and I’m now going you know what I really think you need to have a glass of red wine a day you know keep all these things at Bay good medic yes they say food is medicine and obviously wine is too when

Done properly when done properly well Tony it’s been absolutely fantastic speaking to you thank you so so much you never know I might have to call you back if there’s a an outcry and um don’t believe any of this I might have to get you back um but thank you so much for

For talking to me about thank you so much for having me it’s been a pleasure thank you