Moderate wine consumption with meals may help reduce type 2 diabetes risk
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Moderate consumption of alcohol, particularly wine, was associated with reduced risk for type 2 diabetes, but only if consumption occurred with meals, researchers reported.
“The effects of alcohol consumption on health have been described as a double-edged sword because of its apparent abilities to cut deeply in either direction — harmful or helpful, depending on how it is consumed,” Hao Ma, MD, PhD, a biostatistical analyst at the Tulane University Obesity Research Center in New Orleans, said in a press release. “Previous studies have focused on how much people drink and have had mixed results. Very few studies have focused on other drinking details, such as the timing of alcohol intake.”
Ma and colleagues analyzed 312,388 current drinkers from the UK Biobank cohort who were healthy at baseline to examine the relationship between the timing of alcohol intake with respect to meals and the risk for type 2 diabetes. The results were presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Scientific Sessions.
During 10.9 years of follow-up, Ma and colleagues documented 8,598 incident cases of type 2 diabetes.
After they adjusted for covariates and the amount of alcohol consumed, the researchers found that compared with consuming alcohol outside of meals, consuming alcohol with meals was associated with reduced risk for type 2 diabetes (HR = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.81-0.91).
The timing of alcohol consumption modified the relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and risk for type 2 diabetes (P for interaction = .01), as moderate alcohol intake, defined as one serving per day for women and two servings per day for men, was beneficial in terms of diabetes risk only if consumed with meals, according to the researchers.
The results were primarily driven by wine consumption (14 g per day for women and 28 g per day for men), Ma and colleagues found.
“The message from this study is that drinking moderate amounts of wine with meals may prevent type 2 diabetes if you do not have another health condition that may be negatively affected by moderate alcohol consumption and in consultation with your doctor,” Ma said in the release.
The relationship between alcohol and diabetes remains controversial, Robert Eckel, MD, FAHA, emeritus professor of medicine in the divisions of cardiology and endocrinology/metabolism/diabetes at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and past president of the AHA, said in the release.
“These data suggest that it’s not the alcohol with meals but other ingredients in wine, perhaps antioxidants, that may be the factor in potentially reducing new-onset type 2 diabetes,” he said. “While the type of wine, red vs. white, needs to be defined, and validation of these findings and mechanisms of benefit are needed, the results suggest that if you are consuming alcohol with meals, wine may be a better choice.”
Reference:
- Study finds drinking wine with meals was associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/study-finds-drinking-wine-with-meals-was-associated-with-lower-risk-of-type-2-diabetes. Published on March 3, 2022. Accessed on March 3, 2022.
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Ma H, et al. Presentation 44. Presented at: Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Scientific Sessions; March 1-4, 2022; Chicago.
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