How much wine should I drink? Let’s find out!

As wine lovers, we know it well: there is no limit to the glasses we would like to taste, savour, pair with the best food on our table and the special moments in our lives. However, despite some undoubted benefits that wine brings when taken in moderation, the other side of the coin shows the dangers of excess. But what does “excess” mean? What are the limits? Today we talk about how much wine we should drink.

Wine consumption between benefits and dangers

On the benefits that wine brings to our health, especially if it is genuine and produced according to nature like those you can find in our catalogue, there are no doubts: from the fight to arthrosis and diabetes to dementia, different kind of wines can help us live better and even longer. However, as usual in media stat virtus, and the excessive consumption of wine and alcoholic beverages can lead to serious consequences. These include addiction, depression, liver problems and cirrhosis of the liver, sleep problems and premature death.

This is the reason why the NHS, but in general all the organs and associations aimed at preserving the health of individuals (e.g. Drinkaware), decidedly recommend limited doses when it comes to wine glasses or pints of beer. The average recommended quantity is a maximum of 14 units per week, better if spread during the 7 days, making sure to not drink every day. Transforming this value in glasses and pints, it means six glasses of wine or six pints per week. Other opinions, for example the Italian one, suggest a maximum of two glasses of wine a day for men, one/one and a half at most for women.

These values ​​can change from nation to nation and obviously have a lot of subjectivity, since they depend on the complexion of the person and its state of general health; in any case, the advice is to keep these recommended doses as the very maximum limit, and therefore to never exceed them.

And in case of excessive wine dosage?

But what if we exceed the doses? What happens then?

The Mario Negri Pharmacological Institute in Milan tried to answer this question with a research on the connections of excessive alcohol consumption and different types of cancer that lasted 18 years and involved about 5700 people. The results are clear: in cases where the daily consumption of wine amounts to 2 glasses, the incidence of cancer is the average one; however, when consumption reaches 3 glasses, the likelihood of incurring in different types of cancer increases by a dangerous +20/30%. This is where the Italian recommended limit comes from: over the quantity of 2 glasses for men, 1 glass for women, the risks of cancer dramatically increase.

Moderation is the way

Data provided, now it will be clear how moderation is the way when choosing how much wine we should drink: wine and spirits when in limited quantities are a real pleasure and in some cases, they can bring interesting benefits, but never turn your passion into danger by exceeding the suggested limits.

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