Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


No doubt, you’ve heard of the “French paradox,” the observation that despite a diet dripping with high-fat pâtés and croissants, the French suffer less heart disease than do Americans. The French credit red wine for this — a somewhat controversial claim because studies show that people who drink any alcohol in moderation (one to two beers, cocktails, or glasses of wine a day) suffer less heart disease than abstainers or those who drink more. And at the same time, research has linked even moderate alcohol consumption with other health problems, such as breast cancer. Now this tempest in a wineglass has been resolved. While alcohol in general reduces the risk of heart disease because it increases the level of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) — the so-called good cholesterol — in the blood, red wine contains something other alcoholic drinks do not: specific flavonoids that help prevent the formation of blood clots that trigger heart attacks. This finding is good news for those who cannot or should not drink alcohol. Nonalcoholic purple grape juice contains the same flavonoids as red wine, and drinking three glasses a day can reduce blood coagulability by about 40 percent. — M.C.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate