Moderate Alcohol Consumption Mrs. White encouraged people to abstain from all alcohol use. At some point in her temperance career someone must have mentioned to her that some people using alcohol were living to ripe old ages. In recent years researchers were surprised to discover that wine drinkers in France had much lower cardiovascular disease than those who did not drink. Further research discovered that all alcoholic beverages have this same effect. Researchers discovered that alcohol retards arterial aging and promotes the health of the endothelium, the layer of cells lining your arteries that promotes proper blood flow.
Wine appears to be especially beneficial.
Grapes and other fruits are loaded with phenolic chemical compounds called flavonoids, as well as other antioxidant compounds. But wine presents these flavonoids and antioxidants to the body in a way that juices do not. During the course of processing ordinary juice, the phenolic compounds are largely degraded by their exposure to oxygen, dramatically lowering levels of the heart-helping chemical substances. The study further found that women who drank one drink a day and men who drank one to two drinks a day did not have any higher risk of cancer or liver disease. However, those who drank more than this did increase their risk of cancer and liver disease.