Drinking red wine not only reduces your risk for cardiovascular disease, but it may also reduce your risk for lung cancer – especially if you are a current or ex-smoker, Reuters reported Thursday.
People who do or have smoked and drink at least one glass of wine each day are 60 percent less likely to develop lung cancer than those who have smoked and don’t drink red wine, said Dr. Chun Chao, of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena.
Chao said it's the resveratrol and flavonoids in red wine that are protective -- something white wine does not have.
The reduction seen with red wine "lends support to a causal association for red wine and suggests that compounds that are present at high concentrations in red wine but not in white wine, beer or liquors may be protective against lung carcinogenesis," Chao wrote in her study.
However, previous studies examining the correlation between alcohol consumption and lung cancer haven’t always had the same results, Chao and her team noted in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
Research has not adjusted socioeconomic statuses, which cannot only influence alcohol use, but lung cancer risk.
Click here for more on this story from Reuters.
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