It’s the time of year when you start reading articles about how to avoid colds and flus (you probably can’t) and start taking no end of supplements that supposedly ward off the pesky viruses (they probably don’t.) That said, if you want to try something easier and want yet another excuse to drink red wine, take a look at this study, well, specifically the following part:
One of the previous studies showed that red wine intake reduced the risk of common cold, while intake of other beverages, such as beer and spirits, did not. Give that the beneficial effect of red wine may be because of its higher antioxidant and the anti-inflammatory capacity of polyphenols, the difference seemed to be explained by significantly lower content of polyphenols in beer.
The real takeaway in there is that red wine seemed to reduce risk of the common cold and other alcoholic beverages of choice, not. Read whatever you want in there but it’s one of those self-prescribed over-the-bar medicines that seems pretty easy to deal with and it appears that the specific dosage has a wide margin of, “leave the bottle, please”:
…as the amount of wine intake, not total alcohol, increased, the relative risk of having a common cold significantly decreased.
