Are you suffering from Type-2 diabetes? Drink a glass of red wine every night before you sleep. It might help. In fact, red wine can be a part of a healthy diet plan.

People with diabetes have lower levels of good cholesterol and are more at risk of cardiovascular diseases, and drinking moderate amount of red or white wine helps to improve sugar control, manage the cholesterol level and maintain cardiac health, according to a study. Hence, a glass of wine, especially red wine, consumed every night can help check Type-2 diabetes.

Why should diabetic patients drink red wine every night

The study, conducted by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, Israel, performed a two-year trial on 224 non-alcoholic controlled diabetes patients (aged 45 to 75) and red wine was found to be superior in controlling metabolic profiles.

“Initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics, as part of a healthy diet, is apparently safe, and modestly decreases cardio-metabolic risk,” the researchers said.

“Red wine was found to be superior in improving overall metabolic profiles, mainly by modestly improving the lipid profile, by increasing good (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) cholesterol, while decreasing the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol,” the study said.

However, the effect of drinking wine depends on the patient’s alcohol metabolism genetic profile. The study showed that fast alcohol-metabolisers (with much faster blood alcohol clearance) did not benefit from the ethanol’s glucose control effect.

“The differences found between red and white wine were opposed to our original hypothesis that the beneficial effects of wine are mediated predominantly by the alcohol,” principal investigator Iris Shai said in the study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

Shai then underlined the effects of non-alcoholic constituents of red wines.

“Approximately 150 ml of the dry red or white tested wines contained approximately 17 g ethanol and approximately 120 kilocalorie, but the red wine had seven-fold higher levels of total phenols and four to 13-fold higher levels of the specific resveratrol group compounds than the white wine”.

(With inputs from agencies)