The many health benefits of drinking prosecco
There are plenty of ways in which prosecco benefits us – it makes us feel great and tastes delicious, for a start.
But underneath that giddy bubbly feeling it gives us, could it also be giving our health a sneaky boost? It’d be music to plenty of our ears.
It could be good for your heart
According to research from the University of Reading in the late noughties, two glasses of Champagne (or prosecco, for those of us with less cash) could be good for our heart and circulation.
That’s because it increases the availability of nitric oxide, a vascular active molecule which controls blood pressure, as it contains polyphenols – plant chemicals from red and white grapes used in its production – which induces these effects.
When you drink it, these get absorbed into your circulation, slowing down the natural removal of nitric oxide from our blood.
This means it’ll have a longer time to act on blood vessels, and so improve the flow of blood around the body. High nitric oxide levels in your blood can also help decrease blood pressure and the possibility of blood clots forming.
It could potentially reduce the risks of stroke and cardiovascular disease, but before you get your hopes up, there needs to be lots more research first.
Now that we’re on the topic, what else might prosecco do to benefit our health?
It could help you live longer
In a 40-year study of almost 1,400 men by Wageningen University in the Netherlands, participants that drank a moderate (the key word here) amount of wine lived up to five years longer than those who didn’t drink booze at all.
And that’s wine (read: prosecco) specifically, as those that drank other drinks such as beer and spirits too only extended their lives by two years in comparison to teetotallers.
It could boost your memory
According to research by the University of Reading, “drinking one to three glasses of champagne a week may counteract the memory loss associated with ageing”.
Apparently, the phenolic compounds found in bubbly can improve spatial memory – which is the thing responsible for recording information about one’s environment and storing information for “future navigation”.
Cheers again, Reading university.
It could help prevent you from getting a cold
If we’re worried about getting the sniffles for a big event, going to the pub would probably be the first thing to cut out.
But according to research by the Department of Metabolism and Nutrition at Madrid, drinking a moderate amount of wine (or beer) – “polyphenolic-rich” alcoholic beverages – could prevent the suppression of your immune system.
Now, though this is all very exciting, don’t neck a bottle of bubbly quite yet – drinking anything more than 14 units a week (and no, don’t drink them all in one night) will do anything but boost your health.
But otherwise, bottoms up.
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