Roses are red, and so is my wine. Refill my glass and I'll be just fine.
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Eating dark chocolate is good for your memory, blood pressure, and your mood. It has good properties for your brain, it temporarily reduces stress and gives you a soft energy kick. And you know what goes well with chocolate? Red wine!
Both chocolate and red wine are full of antioxidant compounds, involved in protecting our body against threat. Cacao flavanols (the antioxidant compounds in chocolate) have been shown to help numerous body systems. A recent study recently highlighted the benefice of drinking red wine on the gut microbiome (i.e., all the bacteria living in the gastrointestinal system), adding to the unexplained benefits of red wine on heart health. Let’s dig into those results, shall we?
The brain is undoubtedly the main centre of command in our body. However, it became obvious in recent years that it is not the only one. Another organ has been found to influence our behaviours and impact the way we process certain emotions: the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome is an entire ecosystem living in our body. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the non-living components of their environment, interacting as a system, like a forest, the ocean, and our gastrointestinal system (i.e., our guts). As in every ecosystem, some of the bacteria living in us are good and beneficial for us, some are quite nasty, and some are just there. Our body is in symbiosis with this ecosystem, meaning that we need those bacteria for our organism to function and they need our body to survive. Additionally, the gastrointestinal system hosting those bacteria is referred to as our “second brain” because of the direct communication axis existing between our brain and our guts. The relation between gut microbiome and mental health is quite intriguing and to date, the gut-brain communication has mainly been studied in animal; however, a recent study raises awareness regarding the link between gut microbiome and mental health, showing that some microbial were linked to higher mental quality of life, and their absence/depletion was associated with depression. The researchers remain cautious regarding the direct correlation between those two elements and emphasise the need for more studies.
Overall, there are a fair amount of evidences that gut microbiome is linked to our behaviours, emotion-processing, general health, as well as being involved in food cravings. Right, we might want to look after that ecosystem… and red wine can help with that!
A recent study investigated the effect of different alcohols (beer, cider, white wine, and red wine) on the gut microbiome of almost 3,000 drinkers from 3 different countries (the USA, the UK, and the Netherlands). What they found really comforts me in my choice of drink: red wine drinkers presented a greater number of bacteria, not only in numbers but also in kinds: various species of bacteria strive in their guts! What’s more, you don’t have to be a regular red wine drinker to observe those effects: one glass every 2 weeks seem sufficient to observe this flourishing. Careful though, the study does not present the effect of drinking red wine knowing you are usually a beer drinker: we do not know whether red wine can counter act some of the harmful effects of other alcohols. Further studies would be necessary for that, as well as a comparison with people who do not drink alcohol at all. If this study adds to the “French Paradox”, the idea that wine (and especially red wine) is “good” for you, all the scientists agree on the fact that alcohol can present more risks than benefices.
The consumption of alcohol is quite high on the list of things detrimental for both physical and mental health, alongside smoking and using drugs. Extensive research revealed the impact of alcohol on the brain, and it’s not all great. First, alcohol changes the brain chemistry by affecting the production of different neurotransmitter, the brain messengers. Effectively, drinking slows down your brain by impairing its functions. Second, alcohol triggers the release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone (that’s pretty great), which could lead to habituation and a need for greater quantity of alcohol to trigger the release of dopamine. That’s addiction 1.0.1. Third, drinking can impair your memory, from couple of minutes to complete black-out, and make you lose your balance – you might think you are walking straight but really, you’re not anymore. Fourth, it can encourage reckless behaviours and remove your inhibitions. Finally, alcohol can increase your sexual desire, which is not a bad thing except when combined with high recklessness and complete loss of inhibition, then it can be a problem. Without mentioning the fact that high dose of alcohol impairs the blood allocation and well, sexual performance.
So, on the one hand, alcohol can have some serious short-term effects on the brain. Let’s not even venture in the realm of long-term effect; let’s also acknowledge that most studies looked at the negative effects of high consumption of alcohol. On the other hand, moderate consumption has been associated with an increase in overall health and longevity, or at least it is the case in mice. That’s one of the things about studies on impact of alcohol: ethic committees are not too keen on experimenting on humans and would rather get mice drunks than have to deal with drunk participants let loose in nature. However, recent studies seem to suggest that a glass of wine at the end of the day could be good for you (and your brain). And if you’re drinking, you might as well choose a drink that has some health benefits…
Drinking might not be the best behaviour to engage with, but thinking about it, nothing in life is hazard-free. To decide to engage in a behaviour, the brain will weigh the risks and the benefices of engaging in said behaviour and decide then whether it is “worth it” or not (if we’re honest though, we never weigh extensively the pros and cons of having another drink on a night out). There is no safe level of drinking, true, even one glass of alcohol affects our brain. However, we should acknowledge that there are no safe level of driving or walking either. Whatever we do in life, we do it knowing an accident can happen, and thus we try to be careful. There is not safe level of living, we live anyway. If we drink, let’s drink with moderation, be kind to our brain, and choose red wine (all in moderation, of course...)!
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