Drinking wine can help diabetics improve their artery health

If you're diabetic and a wine lover, we have some good news for you: A recent study has tied wine to healthier arteries for some diabetics.

The study found that some diabetics with plaque build-up in their arteries had less debris in these blood vessels after adding wine to their diets. Read on for more.

Study ties drinking wine to healthier arteries in some diabetics

For their study, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the researchers examined data on 224 people with type 2 diabetes who normally didn’t drink alcohol. They randomly assigned these participants to follow a Mediterranean diet and drink about one glass of red wine, white wine or water every day.
 
Among the subset of 174 people with ultrasound images of their arteries, 45% had detectable plaque at the start of the study. After two years, the researchers didn’t observe any significant increase in plaque for any of the participants who had ultrasounds, regardless of whether they drank wine or water.

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However, among the participants who had the most plaque in their arteries at the start of the study, the researchers observed a small but ‘statistically meaningful’ reduction in these deposits by the end of the study.
 
“Among patients with well-controlled diabetes and a low risk for alcohol abuse, initiating moderate alcohol consumption in the context of a healthy diet is apparently safe and may modestly reduce cardio-metabolic risk,” said lead study author Rachel Golan, a public health researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel.
 

Cardio-metabolic risk factors can increase your chances of many health conditions...

These conditions include type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. In addition to plaque in the arteries, other cardio-metabolic risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, elevated blood sugar, smoking and having poor diet and exercise habits.
 
Some previous research has also tied drinking moderate amounts of wine or alcohol to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease in otherwise healthy people as well as diabetics. However, Golan said her study isn’t a call for all patients with type 2 diabetes to start drinking.

Tags: artery health