Wine News

If you must smoke, at least make sure you have a glass of red wine in the other hand. In a new study just published, researchers claim that red wine combats the effect of smoking on the arteries. The scientists reported that there were enough beneficial chemicals in two glasses of red wine to suspend the harmful effect that smoking one cigarette has on the functioning of arteries. However that does not prove regular red wine drinking can counteract the harm of heavy smoking, John Lekakis and Christos Papamichael of University Hospital in Athens told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.

The finding does suggest that red wine, long seen as good for the heart when drunk in moderation, may provide clues in the hunt for new drug candidates capable of reversing smoking's harmful effects. The scientists used a Greek red wine, rich in chemicals known as polyphenols, for their experiment on 16 healthy volunteers. They established that alcohol was not the cause of the beneficial effect by testing an alcohol-free version, which worked just as well.