Healthy Benefits of Wine Consumption

Bottoms up

"To your health"...it means something new now A report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition points strongly to the conclusion that wine drinkers lead healthier lives than beer or liquor drinkers, or those with no clear preference. Needless to say, having written a great deal in the past about the pros and cons of alcohol consumption, the piece piqued my interest. The report based on a University of North Carolina alumni study of 4500 men of similar socioeconomic status concluded that the "wine snobs" among them exercised more, ate healthier, and were less likely to smoke than their beer and liquor loving (and even non-drinking) buddies. From these facts, they postulated that previous studies illustrating the healthy benefits of wine itself could be merely a reflection of the overall healthier lifestyle that wine drinkers apparently lead. But this study seems only to show that wine drinking is correlative to other healthy habits. It concludes nothing whatsoever about the benefits of the wine itself. In my opinion, a more revealing study would be to identify a large pool of people with similar lifestyle, eating, and exercise habits-then break them down by drinking preference and analyze the long-term health of each group. This would more clearly show the benefits (if any) of one type of beverage over another. Many in the medical community agree that wine is good for you, more or less regardless of your lifestyle. Just look up what's known as the "French Paradox" and you'll see what I mean. But what I believe is that moderate amounts of any type of alcoholic beverage can be beneficial to the health of most people. So don't shy away from responsibly tipping a glass now and again. You'll be doing yourself some good no matter what's in it. **************************************************** Don't be the first to take a new drug According to former agency insiders and private-sector government watchdogs, the FDA's supposedly consumer-focused review and decision-making process is heavily influenced by the drug industry. Surprised? I'm not. Much of the controversy stems from a 1993 law-the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) -that allows the FDA to charge pharmaceuticals manufacturers a substantial fee for reviewing and evaluating marketable drugs. This isn't a nuisance fee-in 2001, the fees amounted to $161,713,000, just slightly less than half of the budget for FDA's review process. What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, for starters, it's a blatant conflict of interest-the FDA is supposed to be a totally objective body concerned only with public safety. How objective can they be if drug companies are footing the bills? But what's more important is this: Under PDUFA, the FDA is bound to certain timelines with regard to the review and approval process, or they can't collect the fee. This shifts the agency's primary focus toward expediency, rather than safety. And it's definitely succeeded in speeding things up. Since 1990, they've cut the time required for drug approval in half. I maintain that the drug companies' rush to get drugs to market and the FDA's eagerness to collect the fees are behind the large number of recent withdrawals from the marketplace of drugs soon after their approval. And as shocking as it is to consider, this may also be the reason why some people have died, prompting those withdrawals. But none of this should surprise you. As with any kind of corruption, you need only follow the money to discover it... Raising a glass to health, William Campbell Douglass II, MD