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November 17, 2025Home > Uncategorized >
Is Alcohol Good for You? Wine as a Health Food
For years, we’ve heard that a glass of wine a day might be “good for the heart.” Then came the headlines saying no amount of alcohol is safe. So… which is it? The truth is more nuanced than the soundbites.
In this article, I’ll cut through the noise and share what the science really says about alcohol — the benefits, the risks, and how it fits (or doesn’t) into a healthy lifestyle. This comprehensive alcohol health guide will help you make informed decisions about your consumption.
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Table of Contents
Is Wine Good For Your Health?
Many people wonder, “is alcohol good for you?” when considering their health choices. The discussion around wine is one good example. There have been quite a few discussions that a glass of wine with dinner had cardiovascular benefits, but were these real benefits or just perceived ones? If you’ve ever heard that wine could help lower your risk of heart disease, I have bad news.
That data has come and gone. What has turned out to be the case is that there’s really no beneficial amount or beneficial type of alcohol based on our best available evidence. Let me tell you a bit more about why we were misled, so you can see how easily it can happen… This alcohol health guide aims to clarify these misconceptions.
Many of the older studies showed that people who had the lowest amount of consumption had higher rates of total death, oftentimes cardiovascular death. Taken at face value, it seems like an easy to make argument that a little bit of alcohol would be good for you.
Of course, these same studies showed that a moderate or a higher amount of alcohol had varying degrees of elevating harm. But it did seem like there was this “lowest amount,” almost close to zero, where you might stand to benefit ever so slightly.
This was a case of what we could call a “subgroup bias.” Of those who did not consume alcohol, it turned out that many people there were not medically allowed to consume alcohol. They had liver disease, kidney disease, or on certain medications that were not compatible with alcohol.
Those people, because of their other problems, did have higher rates of mortality than many other people who were not medically prohibited from consuming alcohol.
Key Insight: Future studies which corrected this found that the benefits vanished. Alcohol was no longer correlated with less total death.
Alcohol & Cognitive Health
When examining cognitive health, the question “is alcohol good for you?” becomes even more complex. We thought for quite a while that alcohol, and especially wine, might be helpful for cognitive function. The thing is that there are constituents of wine, parts of it, that have benefits in the context of a healthy diet.
But when we look at alcohol in isolation, that’s not a contributing factor to why things like the Mediterranean diet are so healthy. It may in fact be working against it.
Imagine a group of people rowing a boat. Perhaps everyone is doing a really good job, except for one person who isn’t really paying attention. They can still move forward in spite of this.
Key Insight: This is how we’ve come to think of the role of alcohol in things like the Mediterranean diet. It’s probably not pushing things forward, but iit sn’t holding everyone back.
And those same constituents that are vaunted for being in wine can be found elsewhere, including:
- Grapes (obviously)
- Pomegranate
- Berries
Alcohol & Cancer Risk
Especially in hormonally sensitive cancers like breast cancer, there is strong data that there is no healthy amount of alcohol that you should be consuming. It can’t be considered a net benefit.
The Pressures of “Benefitting” From Alcohol
My own experience with alcohol is mixed. As anyone does, I’ve had alcohol in social settings throughout my life — but I never really felt like it was doing my body good. I never felt good afterwards, and it always seemed to be taking something away rather than adding to it.
And that can be tough for a lot of people. There are a lot of social settings that rely on alcohol, meaning that the pressures of it can be quite pronounced. That’s why, especially when the discourse around the health benefits of alcohol were getting louder, I really wanted to keep track of those.
Since then, none of those benefits have really panned out. For those who tried to get the benefits from it, even when they feel like they didn’t do well with it, that must be a relief. I know it was for me.
Key Insight: The main message is that, if you don’t enjoy alcohol but feel pressure to receive some kind of health benefit, you’re not missing out. There’s no positive benefits to alcohol.
The Explosion of Non-Alcoholic Products
I’m super excited about this development. The rise of non-alcoholic products is a really good sign, with the variety available and all the data suggesting that it’s one of the fastest-growing segments in the beverage industry. It’s almost gone up 30%, year over year, over the past few years.
That leads to more restaurants and bars having longer lists of non-alcoholic beverages, or entire establishments dedicated to the pursuit of enjoyable non-alcoholic cocktails. There are even things like non-alcoholic wines, aperitifs, beers, and more, and they’re growing in quality and variety.
Alcohol is simply a poison. It’s a toxin, and we know that. If it’s your biggest passion and you really love it, though, small amounts result in small risks. But if you feel like you’re trying to maximize your health, you don’t need to wedge something like a glass of red wine with dinner into your routine.
And if it’s more of a social thing, like I said, I’m super excited by the growing segment of non-alcoholic beverages coming out onto the market. For a lot of people, this can replace the social pressures of needing to have a drink when you’re out on the town. And that’s great.
Take Control of Your Health Today
Alcohol is just one part of the equation. If you’re trying to put yourself in the driver’s seat of your health, the best place to start may be in determining which supplements will benefit you the most. For that reason, I put together this handy quiz to help you get started.
Focused specifically on the health of your thyroid, I’ve created a range of Thyroid-Specific Formulations that can help serve as your daily intake of all the nutrients that your thyroid – as part of your overall health – needs to thrive. I hope you’ll give it a try, and here’s to your best health!
P.S. Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you now:
- Schedule a Thyroid Second Opinion with me, Dr. C, Click Here for Details
- Need help to choose supplements? Click ‘Help Me Decide Here'
- Get my top books Here
Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a Naturopathic Endocrinologist and the author of The NY Times bestselling Hormone Healing Cookbook, The Metabolism Reset Diet, and The Thyroid Reset Diet.
Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what works has helped hundreds of thousands reverse thyroid disease, heal their adrenals, and lose weight naturally. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.
