Drinking dealcoholized red wine lowers blood pressure

HealthDay News — Drinking dealcoholized red wine, compared with red wine or gin, decreases systolic and diastolic blood pressure, study results show.

In a randomized, cross-over, controlled clinical trial, Roman Estruch, MD, PhD, from the University of Barcelona in Spain, and colleagues assigned 67 men at high cardiovascular risk to three treatments: a common background diet plus red wine (30 g alcohol/day), the equivalent amount of dealcoholized red wine or gin (30 g alcohol/day).

Each intervention lasted four weeks. Anthropometrical parameters, BP levels, and plasma nitric oxide were measured at baseline and after each intervention. The results were published in Circulation Research.

Systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly after the dealcoholized red wine intervention, the researchers found, and the changes in BP correlated with increases in plasma nitric oxide.

“[D]ealcoholized red wine decreases systolic and diastolic blood pressure, possibly through a nitric oxide-mediated mechanism,” the researchers write. “The daily consumption of dealcoholized red wine could be useful for the prevention of low-to-moderate hypertension.”