Some nights there is nothing better than kicking back with a glass of red vino. When the kids are in bed, the fiance is watching TV in the living room, and reruns of The Nanny are playing, my feet thrown up on the bed and glass of wine end the stressful day that I just had. It does not bother me one bit to know that my wine glass

is labeled “Witches Brew” since it was a Halloween item. Wine does not discriminate! It does not know the difference of the glass it bares or the design it is drunk from.

Is wine my best friend?

Some days.

I started thinking about how all the hype about wine has recently caught fire. Now drinking wine is the hip thing to do when you socialize with your girlfriends. I must have seen 100 commercials advertising Cougar Town on TBS recently, and every commercial had a group of friends gathered round a table swigging bottles of wine; splashing red wine with each other.

Could it be that there is possibly some health benefits to drinking wine? Or do grapes have it out for us?

I did some research and found 8 Health Benefits of Drinking Wine. Some of the benefits were a little surprising, while others I have heard about before.

1. Wine drinkers have a 34% lower mortality rate than beer or spirits drinkers.
2. Moderate drinkers suffering from high blood pressure are 30% less likely to have a heart attack than nondrinkers. <- So now my doctor can stop wondering how I got off my blood pressure pills.
3. Red wine tannins help lower your risk of heart disease.
4. Moderate drinkers have 30% less risk than nondrinkers of developing type 2 diabetes. Good news again since diabetes runs rampant in my family!
5. Consuming moderate amounts of red wine can allow a 50% drop in your risk of suffering a blood clot related stroke.
6. Wine can lower your chances of getting cataracts by 43%.
7. Moderate consumption of wine (especially red) cuts the risk of colon cancer by 45%.
8. Brain function deteriorates slower in wine drinkers.

Reading some of these benefits definitely can help me sleep better at night. Then again, it could just be that glass of wine I just had.

To be on the safe side, it is recommended to only drink 1 6-8 ounce glass of wine four to six nights a week. So I’m pretty safe. I usually don’t have time for anything more than 1 glass 2 nights a week.

How do you feel about wine drinking and the benefits it can provide?