Valentine’s Day is here again, and it’s another chance for you to show your significant other how much you love them. While the day is meant to express the romantic side of your heart, you can also take care of your actual heart when you go out for an intimate dinner. When your server takes your drink order, select a red wine. You’ll be giving your heart a little boost.
The antioxidants found in red wine can help your heart fight off plaque buildup.
That’s right. Your favorite merlot or malbec wine may be helping you avoid heart disease, and here’s how.
Our body contains groups of atoms called free radicals that can cause damage to certain cell membranes. By creating chemical chain reactions, free radicals harm your DNA or other cell membranes, resulting in cancer or a variety of other medical conditions.
When these atoms are released in the linings of our arteries and heart, they oxidize low-density lipids (LDLs, “bad cholesterol”), leading to damage in the soft inner walls of our heart and arteries. Enough damage over time can eventually lead to heart disease or other coronary complications.
Antioxidants are our body’s natural defense system against free radicals, although our bodies can’t always produce enough of them. When our body doesn’t produce enough antioxidants on its own to stop the activity of free radicals, that’s where eating and drinking antioxidant-rich food and liquids, such as red wine, helps.
Red wine contains vitamin E, vitamin C and beta-carotene, all of which are antioxidants. When they are eaten and absorbed into the body, they help stop the domino effect of destruction caused by free radicals. This is not a license to overdo on the wine though; two to three small glasses a week is fine.
The next time you have a choice between red or white wine, remember your heart and go with the red, in moderation of course. Medi-Rents & Sales hopes that you and your loved ones always seek a heart-healthy lifestyle, and there’s no better time than now to start living better!
Tags: American Heart Month, antioxidants, arteries, heart health, plaque, red wine