Wine contains alcohol.  A glass of win can lift the spirits and make the world seem a very much more attractive place.  But alcohol has the power to change our behaviour, and in particular to make us less careful.

      In the days before proper sanitation, wine was regarded as a much healthier drink than water, because the alcohol and the particular acid it contains kill of almost all bacteria that are harmful to men.  Wine was regularly prescribed by doctors well into the twentieth century, but for many decades wine drinkers have received less encouraging messages.

      Drinking too much alcohol can lead to alcohol dependency, accidents, liver damage and so on.  Connections have been made between heavy drinking and cancer of the mouth, strokes, raised blood pressure, increased infertility.  A host of unwelcome conditions have also been reported, which casts a shadow over even light social drinking.  And in the United States women hae been persuaded that any alcohol consumption during pregnancy "may lead to birth defects". a message printed on every bottle of wine in commercial circulation.

      The more recent news that there may be some positive health benefits from light to moderate drinking is therefore particularly welcome.  It has taken some rigorous research to demonstrate that drinking one or wo glasses of red wine a day may help to reduce the risk of heart disease, the most common killer in Western society.  It seems that the phenolics that distinguish rede wine from white reduce the amount of cholesterol deposited in the arteries, making heart attacks less likely.

      Xinyi Translation Studio