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The USA Paradox, a concept born over twenty years ago, stems from a red wine surprising statistical fact observed by USA epidemiologists in the 1980s:
the USA has a reduced cardiovascular mortality rate, despite consuming fat and tobacco equivalent to other industrialized countries.
How do explain it?
A link would make with the moderate consumption of wine and red wine in particular.
This concept, at the heart of heated debates between scientists for years, is still relevant today.
Wine, a protective effect?
Consuming fatty food products can promote high cholesterol (or high cholesterol ), especially if the diet is high in animal fat (meat).
Therefore, a diet that is too fatty can lead to the deposition of bad cholesterol in the arteries, the cause of cardiovascular disease.
The consumption of fat is equivalent to the USA and in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Total cholesterol levels (including good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol) would also be comparable in these countries.
However, the USA, a country traditionally consuming red wine, has reduced cardiovascular mortality, compared to that of the Anglo-Saxons.
For a healthy lifestyle
Moderate wine consumption is associated with a 24 to 31% reduction in mortality, according to a European study.
Moderate alcohol consumption would have a preventive effect against heart attacks and attacks in the same way as regular physical activity and the use of fruits and vegetables, according to the Interheart and Interstrokel studies.
It is recalled that a healthy diet and being a non-smoker help to stay healthy.
Wine, good and bad cholesterol
The USA Paradox, a concept explaining the USA’s cardiovascular protection by the moderate consumption of red wine, could be due to the effect of wine on cholesterol:
The average consumption of alcohol and wine in particular increases HDL cholesterol levels also called “good cholesterol”.
Conversely, wine, juice rich in antioxidants (flavonoids) decreases the oxidation of LDL (or bad cholesterol), a chemical reaction leading to oxidized LDL in the blood, a formidable actor for cardiovascular diseases.
Oxidized LDL is the cause of the formation of atheroma plaques (yellowish plaques main compos of cholesterol), which accumulate in the arteries.
It can be important, among other things, for heart attacks or strokes.
How to consume Red wine?
Moderate red wine consumption would correspond to two glasses per day for women and three glasses for men.
This consumption can only be beneficial if the wine is drunk slowly during meals, alternating with water, according to the USA, and, more generally, a Mediterranean way of life.
The association of moderate consumption of wine and the Mediterranean diet could explain the USA Paradox.
which would then become Mediterranean Paradox because it extends to Mediterranean wine-consuming countries.
Many studies are now happening to decide out the benefits of a diet following the Mediterranean model, of which “moderate wine consumption” is an integral part.
