WITH researchers finding that two glasses of wine a day could keep skin sagging at bay, you might be poised to stock up on a few bottles.
But there’s a catch – it’s not the alcohol content in wine that’s been found to benefit your complexion.
GettyTwo glasses of wine daily can have anti-ageing effects – but only if the alcohol content is reduced[/caption]
In fact, booze can have a dehydrating effect on your skin every time you drink, according to charity Drinkaware, leaving it “wrinkled, dull and grey, or bloated and puffy” and prone to conditions such as eczema, psoriasis and rosacea.
The team behind the new piece of research – presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition – in gave participants dealcoholised wine, which has most or all of its alcohol content removed.
They found that women who drank two glasses of non-alcoholic muscadine wine daily showed significant improvements in the elasticity and water retention of their skin.
Researchers suggested that the anti-ageing effects to the women’s skin could be attributed to chemical compounds found in the wine called polyphenols, which naturally occur in many plants.
“Muscadine grapes have been found to have a unique polyphenolic profile in comparison to other red wine varieties,” said Lindsey Christman, PhD, who conducted the research with Liwei Gu, PhD, professor of food chemistry and functional food at the University of Florida.
“Our study suggests that muscadine wine polyphenols have potential to improve skin conditions, specifically elasticity and transepidermal water loss, in middle aged and older women.”
Muscadine grapes are native to Southeastern US and are commonly used to make wine and previous research has suggested that polyphenols in could help to decrease inflammation and oxidative stress.
According to healthline, oxidative stress is an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in your body, which can cause damage to organs and tissues and result in various diseases.
Dr Christman explained: “We used dealcoholised muscadine wine because we were interested in the effect of the bioactive compounds in wine, specifically the polyphenols, on skin health.”
For the study, researchers asked 17 women aged 40 to 67 to drink 10 ounces – about two wine glasses – of either dealcoholised wine or a placebo beverage that didn’t contain polyphenols every day for six weeks.
They took a three week break and then switched women to the opposite drink for another six weeks.
They measures the women’s skin for markers of inflammation and oxidative stress at the start and end of the six week period, and saw that drinking muscadine wine significantly improved skin elasticity.
A loss of elasticity is what causes skin to sag more as we age.
The muscadine wine also seemed to decrease the amount of water lost at the skin surface, a measurement that indicates the skin is providing a more effective barrier against damage.
But researchers didn’t observe any significant difference in the amount of wrinkles on the skin between participants drinking the wine or placebo.
“This cross-over study demonstrated that six weeks of dealcoholised muscadine wine consumption resulted in improvement of certain skin parameters associated with ageing, such as elasticity on the forearm and barrier function of the skin on the face, when compared to baseline and placebo,” Dr Christman said.
“This is likely due to decreases in inflammation and oxidative stress.”
She noted that the results of the study would likely be different is the participants had drunk wine with alcohol in it.
She also acknowledged that repeating the study with a larger and more diverse group of people might help confirm its findings, as only 17 women participated.