Drinking red wine can lower the short-term effects of cigarette smoking: Study

You can reduce short-term adverse impacts of smoking by drinking red wine prior to it, German researchers found lately.

Cigarettes can lead to various health ailments like cellular aging, systemic and vascular inflammation and even endothelial damage, which refers to the damage of the inner lining of blood vessels.

This study is published in the American Journal of Medicines.

The researchers from the University of Saarland, Homburg, Germany carried out this study and they found that red wine is capable of triggering the construction of the endothelium-dependent relaxation. Nitric oxide is believed to improve heart function in the coronary arteries which supply oxygen to the heart, this led to the assumption that red wine got a high phenol concentration.

"However, sparse data exist on the short term potential vasoprotective effects of red wine in smoking healthy individuals. The aim of our study was to investigate the acute vascular effects of red wine consumption prior to 'occasional lifestyle smoking' in healthy individuals, stated the lead study investigator, Viktoria Schwarz, MD, from the University of Saarland, Homburg, Germany as the Science Daily quoted.

"We found evidence that pre-consumption of red wine prevented most of the vascular injury caused by smoking," Schwarz added.

There were 20 non-smoking participants involved in the study whose biochemical process in the blood and vessels were analysed. These participants agreed to smoke three cigarettes voluntarily and 10 of them had red wine, which had 0.75 percent of alcohol intoxication, before smoking. Blood and urine samples of these participants were collected before the experiment and it was carried on till 18 hours after smoking as per Medical Xpress.

In the study, the researchers gathered 20 non-smoking volunteers and examined the biochemical process in the vessels and blood. The participants volunteered to smoke three cigarettes. Ten of them drank red wine an hour before smoking. The amount of red wine that they drink is 0.75 percent blood alcohol content. Urine and blood samples were collected before the experiment began and continued until 18 hours after smoking, according to Medical Xpress.

"We observed acute proinflammatory changes, namely, neutrophilia, leukocytosis, upregulated levels of IL-6 in serum, and enhanced messenger RNA expression of IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Our study adds to the present evidence that the proinflammatory effects in nonsmokers with 'occasional lifestyle smoking' could be prevented by red wine consumption," Dr. Schwarz said.

The results of this study were found to be related to only young and healthy non-smokers, there is no confirmation about the impact when it comes to chronic, sick and old smokers.