In a 1991 “60 Minutes” segment, CBS correspondent Maury Safer said that even though the French prefer high-fat foods such as pâté, butter, and triple cream brie, they are less likely to develop heart disease than Americans. I asked why the rate was so low. .

“The answer to the mystery, the explanation to the paradox, may lie in this fascinating glass,” Safer said, holding up a glass of red wine to viewers.

Safer said doctors believed wine had a “flushing effect” that prevented blood clot-forming cells from sticking to artery walls. According to French researchers profiled in this corner, this could reduce the risk of blockages and, in turn, heart attacks.

Tim Stockwell, an epidemiologist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, said at the time that several studies supported this idea. And researchers are discovering that the Mediterranean diet, which traditionally recommends a glass or two of red wine with a meal, is a heart-healthy way of eating, he added.

But it wasn’t until the “60 Minutes” segment that the idea that red wine was a virtuous health drink “took off”, he said.

Within a year after the show aired, sales of red wine in the United States soared by 40%.

It will take decades for the light of wine health to fade.

How our understanding of alcohol and health has evolved

The possibility that a glass or two of red wine could have a positive effect on the heart was a “great idea” and researchers “were open to it,” Dr. Stockwell said. This is consistent with a large body of evidence from the 1990s linking alcohol to health.

For example, a 1997 study that followed 490,000 U.S. adults for nine years found that those who reported drinking at least one alcoholic beverage per day were more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who did not. It was found that sex was 30-40% lower. I don’t drink. They were also about 20% less likely to die from any cause.

By 2000, hundreds of studies had come to similar conclusions, Dr. Stockwell said. “I thought the science was working,” he says.

But since the 1980s, some researchers have pointed out problems with this type of research and questioned whether alcohol was responsible for the effects they saw.

People who drink alcohol in moderation are probably healthier than people who don’t drink alcohol, because they are more likely to be educated, wealthy, physically active, and have health insurance. , the researchers said, because they were more likely to eat more vegetables. Or, the researchers added, it could be because many of the “non-drinkers” in the study were actually former drinkers who stopped drinking due to health problems.

Kay Middleton Fillmore, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, was among those who called for further scrutiny of the study. “It is incumbent on the scientific community to carefully evaluate this evidence,” she wrote in an editorial published in 2000.

In 2001, Dr. Fillmore persuaded Dr. Stockwell and other scientists to help him scrutinize previous research and reanalyze it in a way that could account for some of these biases.

Dr. Stockwell remembers telling Dr. Fillmore, who passed away in 2013, “I’m going to work with you on this,” but “I was really skeptical about this whole thing.” Told.

As it turns out, the research team discovered a surprising result. In the new analysis, the previously observed benefits of moderate drinking disappeared. Their findings, published in 2006, made headlines for going against conventional wisdom. “Studies are starting to show that a little wine can help your heart,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

“It upset so many people,” Dr. Stockwell said. “The alcohol industry has taken great steps and spent a lot of money to counter the emergence of this rather disturbing message,” he added. Within a few months, an industry-funded group held a symposium to discuss this research and invited Dr. Fillmore.

In notes kept by Dr. Stockwell, Dr. Fillmore wrote that the discussions were “hot and heavy and made me want to take off my shoes and slam them on the table.”

And when the two conference organizers presented the symposium summary that the “consensus of the conference” was that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with improved health outcomes, Dr. Stockwell admitted that Dr. Fillmore had a different view. He said he was “furious”. Represented.

Since then, a number of studies, including one by Stockwell and colleagues published in 2023, have confirmed that alcohol is not the health drink that was once believed.

In 2022, researchers reported even more significant news. Dr. Leslie Cho, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, said drinking alcohol has no cardiovascular benefits and may even increase the risk of heart disease.

Today, a growing body of research shows that even one drink a day can increase your chances of developing conditions such as high blood pressure and irregular heart rhythms, both of which can lead to stroke, heart failure, and other conditions. could lead to health risks, she said.

And the link between alcohol and cancer is clear, something the World Health Organization has been saying since 1988.

Dr. Cho acknowledged that this is a very different message than patients may have heard from their doctors over the years. But the consensus has changed.

The World Health Organization and other health organizations say no amount of alcohol is safe, whether you’re drinking wine, beer or alcoholic beverages.

So, are you done with wine?

When Jennifer L. Hay, a behavioral scientist and health psychologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, was counseling cancer patients, she learned that alcohol, including wine, is a carcinogen. Many said they were “absolutely shocked”. In a 2023 study, researchers surveyed nearly 4,000 American adults and found that only 20% knew that wine could cause cancer. However, 25% of respondents knew that beer could cause cancer, and 31% knew that alcohol could cause cancer.

Dr. Cho’s heart patients are often surprised when she suggests they limit their intake of alcohol, including wine. “They thought, ‘What? It’s supposed to protect you from heart disease,'” she said.

Red wine contains compounds called polyphenols, some of which may have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

But no research, including decades of research on a type of polyphenol called resveratrol, has conclusively linked red wine intake to health outcomes, Cho said. And, she added, there’s not enough evidence that wine is no more harmful than other types of alcohol.

“That can be really difficult to hear,” Dr. Hay acknowledged.

Every time she tells people she studies the risks of alcohol, “a ball drops in the room,” she says.

However, Dr Hay added that he and other researchers were not suggesting a “ban” on alcohol. She just wants people to know about the risks.

And for most people, Dr. Cho says it’s okay to enjoy a glass of wine every now and then.

But that doesn’t help your heart, she said. “It’s just time to let go of that belief.”