Red wine as a weight loss method

Red wine as a weight loss method

Red wine isn’t only great paired with cheese and red meat, but it can also help you achieve your weight loss goals. It’s not every day that wine lovers hear such gratifying news. After all the caution we hear from authorities and all the negative effects medical authorities tell us, the wine lover community is finally getting some good news. However, those headlines advising “two glasses of wine a day can help you keep the fat away” are not entirely accurate. Just before you fetch the corkscrew and cancel your gym membership, you might want to read the fine print.

Recent research shows that an ingredient in grapes, berries and, yes indeed, red wine can turn excess flab into calorie-burning “brown” fat. Accordingly, a diet that contains the substance resveratrol may help keep the fat away.

Researchers gave mice amounts of resveratrol equivalent to humans consuming 12 ounces of fruit per day. The study found that despite a high fat diet, the mice gained 40% less weight than animals not fed the compound. Researchers believe that the mice changed their excess white fat to active “brown” or “beige” fat which reduces weight gain by burning up calories. A similar effect might be caused by other “polyphenol” chemicals in fruit.

“Polyphenols in fruit, including resveratrol, increase gene expression that enhances the oxidation of dietary fats so the body won’t be overloaded,” said lead researcher professor Min Du, from Washington State University, US. “They convert white fat into beige fat which burns lipids (fats) off as head, helping to keep the body in balance and prevent obesity and metabolic dysfunction. We are using resveratrol as a representative for all the polyphenols.”

According to professor Min Du, fruits like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and apples are particularly rich in polyphenol.

Although red wines contain resveratrol, they only feature a fraction of the levels found in grapes, said professor Min Du. “Many of the beneficial polyphenos are insoluble and get filtered out during the wine production process,” he explained.

Unfortunately, there’s not enough research to prove that red wine can actually help you lose weight. First of all, the study was carried out on mice not humans, and it did not actually involve red wine.

The study was focused on how resveratrol can stimulate the development of brown fat deposits within white fat tissue. Unlike mice and babies, human adults have very little brown fat. It is the accumulation of white fat what eventually leads to obesity, so the study was looking for a way to turn it into calorie-burning brown fat to tackle the problem.

Since researchers found that higher doses of resveratrol fostered the development of brown-fat-like cells within the white fat tissue of mice, they hoped that something similar could take place in humans. As the study was focused on mice, however, we can’t know for sure if resveratrol will have the same effect in people.

So before add red wine to your diet, just beware that a standard bottle of 750cl bottle of red wine contains around 570 calories. That is equivalent to two McDonald’s burgers.

Adults have little brown fat and it has been recently discovered that white fat contains brown-fat-like cells called “beige” fat cells. Thus, stimulating the development of these beige cells - so called “browning” - could reverse the harmful effects of excess white fat and improve health. The goal of the study was how to stimulate the browning.

On an analysis by Bazian, published on the NHS website, it claimed: “Mouse studies can give an indication of biological processes that may also work in humans, but we are not identical. We don’t know that if we were to be given daily resveratrol we would also start developing more brown-fat-like cells in our fat tissue. Even if we did, we don’t know whether this would cause weight loss, or reverse obesity.”

The analysis also pointed out that the study didn’t use wine specifically: “The mice were not drinking red wine on a daily basis. As one of the lead researchers is quoted in the media, the amount of resveratrol found in wine is a fraction of that present in grapes and berries, as much of the chemical is filtered out during the wine production process. You would gain more resveratrol from eating the grapes and berries themselves than drinking wine - but that makes a much less exciting headline.”

The analysis also pointed out the risks of drinking too much wine. “Wine is also high in calories, which may cancel out any slight theoretical benefit you may gain from trying to convert white fat to brown. A high alcohol intake is also known to be associated with many health risks both in the immediate and long term. The proven risks of drinking too much red wine probably outweigh any possible benefits from trying to convert white fat to brown fat.”

The analysis edited by NHS Choices concluded that the study provides no evidence that drinking red wine will help you lose weight.”