Two glasses of champagne good for your heart

Andrej Jerman of Slovenia sprays champagne from the podium, after winning the alpine ski Men's World Cup Downhill race in Bormio, northern Italy. . File photo: AP.

Drinking two glasses of champagne a day is good for your heart and blood circulation.

“Drinking champagne has the potential to reduce the risks of suffering from cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. This is very exciting news,” said Jeremy Spencer, food scientist at the University of Reading, who led a new study on the subject.

Champagne does this by increasing the availability of nitric oxide, a molecule which controls blood pressure. It is able to induce these effects because it contains polyphenols, plant chemicals from the red grapes and white grapes used in champagne production.

When you drink champagne, these polyphenols get absorbed into the blood stream where they are able to act on the vascular (circulatory) system.

Specifically, they appear to slow down the natural removal of nitric oxide from our blood, meaning that it will have a longer time to act on blood vessels and so improve the flow of blood around the body.

High nitric oxide levels in the blood, as a result of drinking champagne, can have beneficial effects, because as well as increasing blood flow, it may help decrease both blood pressure and the likelihood of blood clots forming, said a Reading varsity release.