Wine and the Liver

The answer is that it is neighter good for you nor bad for you. If you overdrink, it’s bad for you. If you drink in control, it’s good for you.

Wine is famously good for your heart, but can kill your liver if you drink too much. You can’t think about it, though, in terms of “good for the heart” and “bad for the liver”, because this article about wine and the liver argues that wine is actually GOOD for your liver, if you drink in control.

The population-based study, from researchers at the University of California, San Diego, included 7,211 nondrinkers and 4,543 modest alcohol drinkers (an average of four ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or one ounce of liquor per day) found that those who drank one glass of wine a day had half the risk of suspected NAFLD compared to nondrinkers.

But people who reported modest consumption of beer or liquor had more than four times the risk of having suspected NAFLD than those who drank wine.

The study was published in the June issue of Hepatology.

“The results of this study present a paradigm shift, suggesting that modest wine consumption may not only be safe for the liver but may actually decrease the prevalence of NAFLD. The odds of having suspected NAFLD based upon abnormal liver blood tests was reduced by 50 percent in individuals who drank one glass of wine a day,” Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer, an associate professor of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition in the department of pediatrics, and director of the fatty liver clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, said in a prepared statement.