Drink ‘thousands of varieties of wine’ to boost immunity and improve mental health

Mixing up wine varieties could help boost health, a leading expert has said.

Professor Tim Spector of King’s College London said drinkers should try ‘thousands’ of different types to boost the immune system, fight diseases, and improve mental health.

He also suggested drinking wine early on in a meal, as an aperitif to stop the drink disrupting sleep and damaging health.

Wine is known to be good for heart health, but Prof Spector said it was also good for improving gut health and boosting the population of healthy bacteria which live in the body.

It is high in polyphenols - a large group of natural defence chemicals present in many fruits and vegetables -  with red wine containing about a third more polyphenols than white.

Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants, preventing cell damage, and studies have shown that a diet rich in the compounds can protect against cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases.

One of the most important, resveratrol, is even being studied for its ability to slow down ageing.

But for people thinking that grape juice would have the same impact without the alcohol, studies have shown that it is the fermentation process that produces the helpful polyphenols.

Speaking on the Wine Blast podcast, Prof Spector said people should sample as many grape varieties of wine as possible to pick as many different polyphenols as they could.

“Drink wine, primarily for the pleasure, but at the back of your mind think ‘could I be trying different bottles or varieties that might actually be healthier for me and that I might enjoy?’” he said.

“Diversity is also important; if you take the analogy from food, having a range of different grape varieties in your diet means you are going to be helping different gut microbes inside you and you will increase your gut health and diversity.

“Don’t just stick with the same wine, get out there and try hundreds or thousands of different grape varieties that we generally don’t enjoy.

“Let’s get those rare ones back on the map again because those could be helping you nourish really healthy gut microbes inside you and improve your health.”

Although there are around 10,000 grape varieties only a relative few are used in wine making. The most common wine grapes include Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Garnacha.

In 2019, King’s carried out a study with 916 female twins and found the gut microbiome of red wine drinkers was more diverse than non-red wine drinkers. No difference was found with white wine, beer or spirits.

The microbiome is the collection of microorganisms in an environment and plays an important role in human health. A person’s gut microbiome with a higher number of different bacterial species is considered a marker of gut health.

However Prof Spector advised drinkers to stop after half a bottle to get the maximum benefit, without causing damage.

He said: “The people that like to drink half a bottle of wine or more, it has a negative impact.

“The window only seemed to be between one or two glasses of red wine.

“[It] makes sense because we don’t think it’s the alcohol per se that’s helpful, we know that’s toxic for the body and if you give alcohol to gut microbes they don’t like it, they only like the by-product.

“You’re having a toxic effect on the gut microbes if you’re having too much alcohol.”

And drinking earlier in the day is likely to be more beneficial, because alcohol can impact sleep, which is crucial for good health.

“There’s quite a lot of evidence now that drinking alcohol late at night gets you to sleep earlier but disturbs your sleep so you have less quality of sleep,” he said.

“Really, we should be perhaps promoting wine early on as the aperitif and in the early stages of the meal, not maybe as much right at the end with the cheese as I do and overdo it.”