Health
Here’s how your body responds to the festive classic.
The holidays are the time for present-wrapping, yelling your favorite Mariah Carey songs at the top of your lungs, and the sweet scent of spiced hot drinks spilling through your house. But how does your body react to a warm, spicy bev? The health benefits of mulled wine may come second to its taste when you're holding a steaming cup to your nose, but experts tell Bustle that it has a few nutritional tricks up its sleeve.
"Warming mulled wine combines red wine and seasonal flavors and spices like oranges, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice," Ginger Hultin R.D.N., a dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Dietetics and Nutrition, tells Bustle. Alcoholic drinks spiked with spices, like mulled ales or the amazingly named Smoking Bishop, became popular in the 19th century as a 'healthy' drink to stave off colds and the blues, says food historian Annie Gray Ph.D. And those ingredients, combined in a steaming mug, combine into a festive classic.
Whether you nab it off a supermarket shelf or mull your own wine or apple juice over the stove with a muslin bag of cinnamon and spices, here are the potential health benefits of mulled wine, and the caveats.
Experts:
Annie Gray Ph.D.
Ginger Hultin RDN
Dr. Seema Sarin M.D.
Studies cited:
Castaldo, L., Narváez, A., Izzo, L., Graziani, G., Gaspari, A., Minno, G. D., & Ritieni, A. (2019). Red Wine Consumption and Cardiovascular Health. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 24(19), 3626. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24193626
GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators (2018). Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet (London, England), 392(10152), 1015–1035. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2
Lippi, G., Franchini, M., Favaloro, E. J., & Targher, G. (2010). Moderate red wine consumption and cardiovascular disease risk: beyond the "French paradox". Seminars in thrombosis and hemostasis, 36(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0030-1248725
Lv, X., Zhao, S., Ning, Z., Zeng, H., Shu, Y., Tao, O., Xiao, C., Lu, C., & Liu, Y. (2015). Citrus fruits as a treasure trove of active natural metabolites that potentially provide benefits for human health. Chemistry Central journal, 9, 68. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13065-015-0145-9
Yamada, T., Hayasaka, S., Shibata, Y., Ojima, T., Saegusa, T., Gotoh, T., Ishikawa, S., Nakamura, Y., Kayaba, K., & Jichi Medical School Cohort Study Group (2011). Frequency of citrus fruit intake is associated with the incidence of cardiovascular disease: the Jichi Medical School cohort study. Journal of epidemiology, 21(3), 169–175. https://doi.org/10.2188/jea.je20100084
Yashin, A., Yashin, Y., Xia, X., & Nemzer, B. (2017). Antioxidant Activity of Spices and Their Impact on Human Health: A Review. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland), 6(3), 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox6030070
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