What Are The Side Effects Of Drinking A Glass Of Wine Daily? Here Is What To Know According To Science

Let’s find out ‘What Are The Side Effects Of Drinking A Glass Of Wine Daily?’ Even while you’ve certainly heard that red wine has health advantages, including the ability to cut cholesterol, manage diabetes, and reduce inflammation, a strong wine consumption habit can actually have some unpleasant side effects, including an increased risk of cancer or heart disease.

But what happens if just one glass of wine per day is consumed if “heavy” drinking causes these adverse effects?

It’s probably preferable to drink less, according to Lisa R. Young, Ph.D., RDN, a member of our Medical Expert Board, who also asserts that you don’t need to do so every day.

But the [current] Dietary Guidelines recommend one drink for women and two for men per day if you do drink.

However, not everyone should drink wine at this lower level, and you should be aware of the risks associated with even moderate drinking. Because even while having one glass with supper every night may not seem dangerous at all, it can have some negative effects on your health. Read on to learn the negative effects of consistently consuming just one glass of wine each night and how they affect your general health before you pour another one.

 

The possibility of having trouble sleeping is one of the negative effects of drinking wine—or any alcohol, for that matter—in the evening. Even though drinking often makes people feel sleepier or more sleepy, this feeling quickly passes. Instead, drinking, according to the Handbook of Clinical Neurology, can shorten a person’s time in the REM stage and interrupt their sleep all night long. So, even while you may believe that drinking wine will help you fall asleep more easily and quickly, you may be unhappy to learn that it may also cause you to wake up in the middle of the night.

 

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol interacts potentially harmfully with a variety of drugs, including acetaminophen, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, opioids, and sedatives. Certain drugs and alcohol can interact and cause drowsiness, headaches, nausea, and occasionally fainting. Before enjoying your nightly glass of wine, make careful to check the cautions on any medications as it can also render antibiotics worthless.

 

Even with only moderate intake, your daily wine habit may be raising your risk of breast cancer. A review article in Breast Cancer Research indicated that while moderate drinking (50 grams or more of alcohol per day) was associated with an increased risk, even only 18 grams per day had an impact. Given that one drink contains roughly 14 grams of alcohol, your daily glass may be having a bigger influence on your health than you think.

Another analysis of 53 epidemiological studies found that, for women who did not smoke tobacco, every 10 grams of alcohol added per day—less than one drink—led to a similar 7% increase in the risk of developing breast cancer.

 

You may be dismayed to learn that mild to moderate alcohol usage can raise the risk of developing cancer if you don’t smoke cigarettes but yet consume alcohol.

A 2019 study found that consuming one bottle of wine per week—far less than a glass per day—increases lifelong cancer risk by 1.4%–1.5%. Although it might not seem like much at first, this increased chance of developing cancer is equivalent to smoking five cigarettes for men and ten cigarettes for women per week.

 

Even a tiny amount of alcohol consumed frequently can increase your risk of having an unusually fast heartbeat. According to a study that was published in EP Europace, daily drinkers were at the greatest risk when compared to weekly or biweekly drinkers. These results are intriguing because they suggest that frequency may matter more than actual alcohol consumption when it comes to atrial fibrillation, also known as an irregular heartbeat. In fact, those who drank more alcohol at once had a reduced risk of developing AF than those who consumed little quantities more frequently during the week.

However, these findings are not meant to support frequent binge drinking. According to the CDC, binge drinking—defined as having four or more drinks in a single sitting for women and five for men—can increase your risk of developing heart disease, dementia, mental health problems, and cancer.

 

According to Young, moderate drinking—one glass per day for women and two for men—is generally seen as being safe for the heart. However, larger alcohol use may raise a person’s risk for hypertension. High blood pressure, or hypertension, can cause kidney disease and heart failure.

The Mayo Clinic claims that having three or more drinks in one sitting may momentarily increase your blood pressure, with “continued binge drinking” prolonging the effect.

 

In a recent policy brief, the World Heart Federation (WHF) claimed that “no amount of alcohol is helpful for the heart.” The short continues by noting the several illnesses that drinking alcohol has been related to, including a higher risk of heart disease, coronary disease, stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and aneurysm. As opposed to those who consume between zero and 25 grams, or roughly zero to two drinks, these hazards are said to grow with weekly alcohol use of 100 grams, or seven drinks.

However, as reported by CNN, the WHF faced a lot of backlash for publishing this data with such a binary view of alcohol usage, and many individuals continue to support the notion that moderate drinking may be beneficial to your heart.

According to Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics, “there are some scientific studies that support their headline, but based on my work on the Global Burden of Disease Study, which compiles all the available evidence to date, the claim by the WHF is not supported by the scientific evidence currently available.”

This resistance ultimately means that there is still considerable controversy regarding the overall heart health effects of alcohol intake, and you may want to talk to your doctor about your specific drinking patterns to determine what is best for you.