"New Research Explores the Benefits of Moderate Drinking" dominates the front cover and pages 46-61 of the Wine Spectator's current issue.  Summarizing a wealth of Wine & Health studies that have been posted on their website www.winespectator.com  they created a User's Guide to Wine Science with research findings that suggest a link between wine and and heart health, delaying dementia, preventing arthritis, heading off a cold, keeping flu away, lowering diabetes risk, reducing throat cancer, maximizing melatonin, etc.  And the visual guide they provide "A Body of Wine Research", travels from the brain to the colon to the legs summarizing the latest data.  

There is also a very good analysis of medical pros & cons of wine drinking for women who cannot drink as much as men because they have less of the enzyme that metabolizesalcohol--alcohol dehydrogenase--per unit of body mass than men.  Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, a professor of medicine and public health at Boston University--whom I had the pleasure of interviewing in Atlanta when CBS News first broadcast the French Paradox story--was quoted as saying that as long as women don't binge drink--or have more than 1.5 drinks per day--and have adequate folate intake and are not on hormone-replacement therapy, essentially the benefits wine provides of lowering the more common causes of death among women--heart disease, stroke, hip fracture & dementia--outweigh the slightly increased risk of breast cancer.

The last two articles in this issue discuss resveratrol-- and how scientists are in a race to figure out how resveratrol and other polyphenols can help us live longer--and what 6 medical doctors answer in a roundtable discussion of wine and health specifics.  

Whether you are a medical professional yourself--or a member of the public who wants the full story--please get a copy of this issue or go to winespectator.com    

Raising my glass of red to your continued Good Health!  ALL