Alcohol is a source of excess calories which are being turned into fat (usually, triglycerides), so the fat levels in your blood go up.

But that is only part of the story.

Researchers have found that apart from adding calories to the diet, alcohol also prevents the burning of fat.

Some people have increased susceptibility to developing raised triglycerides in response to alcohol. So if you do not require insulin, or are not diabetic, and consume alcohol regularly, you may be able to lower your elevated triglycerides just by avoiding alcohol.

By taxing the liver and reducing the ability to detoxify blood, alcohol causes more harm to blood vessels. When the liver is busy processing alcohol, it is less able to process cholesterol. As a result, LDL-"bad" cholesterol levels go up.

In addition, alcohol will potentiate the toxicity of cholesterol-lowering medications much more than the drugs would do alone. Actually, this is the major problem with the statins.

By drinking alcohol daily, you may increase your chances of serious statin side effects, especially liver problems. Therefore, to protect your liver, you should go easy on alcohol or avoid it completely while taking a statin.

It brings up two general misconceptions about beer drinking:

• First, that beer is harmless, because it's only 5 percent alcohol, compared to 40 percent for whiskey.

Not quite so. Keep in mind, there's as much alcohol in a can beer as in a shot of whiskey. Additionally, regular beer contains both alcohol and carbohydrates

• Second, consuming the beer over a long period of time will have little effect on one's sobriety.

Not so. It takes hours for the body to eliminate even small amounts of alcohol. So, if you are a six-pack-a-day person, by the time you pop the last can at the end of the day, your blood alcohol level may be dangerously high.

It is believed the antioxidants, called flavonoids, reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in three ways by:

• reducing production of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (also know as the "bad" cholesterol)
• boosting high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol), and
• reducing blood clotting.

It has been well documented that moderate amounts of alcohol can raise HDL-"good" cholesterol and thin the blood. This is thought to be one of the primary cardiovascular benefits from wine (red and white). Therefore, consuming one drink (defined as a 5-ounce a glass of wine) along with a meal may favorably influence your blood lipid profiles following that meal. But if you drink more than that, the possible health benefits will be lost and your health risks will go up. What matters with wine is the amount of wine you have.

Which wines should you consume to reap the most benefits?
Researchers at the University of California, at Davis have found the highest concentrations of flavonoids in Cabernet Sauvignon, followed closely by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir.

White wine had significantly smaller amounts than the red wine varieties. The bottom line is the sweeter the wine, the fewer the flavonoids.

Dryer red wines are your best bet for a flavonoid boost.

How much red wine should I drink?
A four-ounce glass of wine is equivalent to one serving of liquor. Men may benefit from consuming one to two servings every other day. Women may benefit from one serving every other day.

This is not to say that you should start drinking alcohol if you presently do not!

However, for some people, 1 drink may be plenty, 2 may be too many, and, unfortunately, 3 may be not half enough. (There are people who over-indulge on red wine having a half to full bottle a day!).

Hypertriglyceridemia (high blood triglyceride levels), pancreatitis, liver disease, diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension, depression and congestive heart failure (CHF), or heart failure, are diseases that are worsened by alcohol.

However, if you insist on drinking red wine you also need to check on the growing conditions of the grapes and how the wine is made.

The wine should be made with organic grapes - free of toxic agricultural chemicals, synthetic herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.

If it is NOT made from organically grown grapes - and with as little sulfur, synthetic stabilizers, colorings, etc. as possible - the wine may have few, if any, health benefits.

For example, it may contain little antioxidants and/or no resveratrol at all. (Resveratrol is a prostate cancer-fighting compound found in red grapes from which red wine is being made).

You also need to be aware that consuming large amounts of red wine or just grapes - which have a much lower concentration of antioxidants than wine - will increase your insulin levels and eventually have a negative impact on your lipid health due to their high fructose (sugar) content.

Resveratrol (trans-3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene) is a protective compound produced by grapes and other plants in response to environmental stress. Studies have shown that it has potent antioxidant activity and the ability to inhibit platelet aggregation producing potent anti-thrombotic agents. These actions may help prevent free radical damage throughout the body and provide protective support to the cardiovascular system. Red wine also contains tannins, substances that act as antioxidants, which mop up free radicals - particles harmful to cells.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of misinformation about resveratrol, so you need to keep the following in mind when reviewing articles and marketing information about related products.

Red wine is a rich source of resveratrol. On average, there is 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter (a liter is almost 34 ounces). For this reason, many sources reference resveratrol as "red wine polyphenols," "red-wine extract," etc. Actually, some studies focused on its health benefits used much greater dosages of resveratrol than the dosages actually found in an average glass of wine.

As resveratrol is found in the skins of grapes, red wine provides several times more resveratrol than white wine. That is because the longer the skin is kept on the grape during the wine making process, the greater the concentration of resveratrol in the wine. In the case of white wine production, the skin is removed before fermentation, giving white wines a lower concentration in resveratrol compared to red wines.

Also, as resveratrol is produced within the grape skin in response to attack by specific molds, grapes and wine produced in moist, northern climates (where these fungi are more prevalent) yield more resveratrol.

Resveratrol is vulnerable to rapid destruction by light and oxygen. Although storing wine in airtight, cool conditions away from sunlight protects its resveratrol content, the maximum resveratrol potency is available only immediately after a bottle of wine is opened.

Unfortunately, making wine also involves the potential damage from alcohol and preservatives; therefore, many people prefer a dietary supplement source for resveratrol.

The researchers wanted to see if the antioxidant chemicals in red winered wine could offset some of the blood pressure effects of alcohol. So they compared it with beer.

They divided 24 healthy men into four different groups for four weeks:

• Some men drank no wine or beer and served as a comparison group
• Some men drank 13 ounces of red wine daily
• Some men drank 13 ounces of red wine with the alcohol removed to see if the alcohol accounted for any blood pressure effect
• Some men drank 38 ounces of beer daily (just over three beers)

The men made no other changes in their lifestyle other than limiting tea to less than 2 cups a day (since tea can also raise blood pressure) and avoiding antioxidants (to avoid any potential effect on blood vessels).

The men wore blood pressure and heart rate monitors 24 hours a day.

Blood pressure, heart rate climb
Compared with the men who did not drink any alcohol, the red wine drinkers had a nearly a 2.5 point jump in their systolic blood pressure. Beer drinkers' blood pressure rose nearly two points.

Systolic blood pressure is the top number of a blood pressure reading. It measures the pressure in blood vessels when the heart pumps.

While this doesn't sound like much, even a few points can make a difference in people who have borderline or high blood pressure. Ideally, blood pressure should be less than 120/80. Blood pressure between 120/80 and 140/90 is called prehypertension.prehypertension.

Heart rate also rose. The researchers tested heart rate during sleep to rule out any effect of activity. Red wine drinkers' heart rate climbed five points for eight to 10 hours after drinking. Beer drinkers' heart rate rose four points.

Removing alcohol from the red wine did not lower the blood pressure.

The researchers say that the blood pressure effects of red wine and beer appear to be similar.

Since the men in the study did not have high blood pressure, it's unclear how these findings apply to people who do.

SOURCE: Zilkens, R. Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, May 2005; vol 45: pp 1-6.

This comprehensive, epidemiological study, involving 2,343 randomly selected men and women aged between 35 and 79, has found those who drank small amounts of alcohol regularly had the smallest beer bellies, while sporadic but intense drinking - involving more than three to four drinks on each occasion - resulted in the biggest bellies, stomachs sagging over the belts.

The researchers collected information on how much and how often people had drunk during the past 30 days, what type of alcohol it was and whether they drank it with or without food.

What they have found is that men and women who drank infrequently but heavily had more abdominal fat than people who consumed the same amount but drank regularly. In other words, the more drinks per drinking day, the higher the abdominal measurement.

Definitely, the way we drink is as important as the amount of alcohol we consume and binge drinking is an unhealthy way of consuming alcohol. It does not mean, however, that persons with abdominal fat should start drinking.

Also the type of alcohol consumed seems to make a difference: wine drinkers had the lowest abdominal height and drinkers of spirits had the highest. And strong spirits were much more likely than beer to cause beer bellies.

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The study was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Source: Alcohol Drinking Patterns Differentially Affect Central Adiposity as Measured by Abdominal Height in Women and Men. The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 133:2655-2662, August 2003.