Grape juice or wine: which is the best option?

Abstract

Grapes used in the wine or juice production are mainly Vitis vinifera and Vitis labrusca and possess high amounts of polyphenolic compounds. These compounds are associated with the reduction of the inflammatory processes, oxidative stress, and protection against cardiovascular diseases. The industrial processes used for juice and wine production may interfere with the antioxidant composition of these products and the effects on human health. The aim of this review is to compare the effects of the consumption of wine or grape juice on cardiovascular risk factors. We used PRISMA guidelines and Medline/PUBMED and EMBASE to perform our search. The main effects of red wine and grape juice in humans were a reduction of body mass index, waist circumference, glycemia, plasma lipid peroxidation, total cholesterol, LDL-c, triglycerides, blood pressure, and homocysteine levels. Both wine and grape juice possess numerous bioactive compounds that are potentially responsible for many beneficial effects on human health. Nevertheless, there is a need for more double-blind, randomized controlled studies comparing the effects of juice and wine consumption without the biases that occur when comparisons are made with different populations, ages, doses, and different types of wine or juice.

Keywords:

• cardiovascular diseases
• grape
• grape juice
• phenolic compounds
• resveratrol
• wine

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Renato Vono for making the figures. behance.net/renatovono or facebook.com/vonodesigner.

Disclosure statement

Authors declare no conflict of interests.

Authors contribution

SMB, AMO, CCTN, and ELG designed the manuscript and wrote the final version. AMRF and RAG contributed to the literature survey and reviewed the final version of the manuscript. We are responsible for the accuracy of the contents of this paper, and we do not have financial interest linked to this.