Wine consumption, Mediterranean diet, and cardiovascular risk in two Spanish cohorts

The benefits of the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) are well established. However, one component, wine, remains controversial. This study assessed the association between MedDiet (with or without wine consumption) and major cardiovascular disease (CVD) or all-cause mortality.

The PREDIMED trial included 7447 high-risk participants. Adherence to MedDiet was measured using a validated 14-item questionnaire, including one item on wine (cut-off: seven glasses/week). The CVD events were recorded over a 4.8-year follow-up, while all-cause mortality was tracked for 17 years. A younger Spanish cohort (the SUN project), including 23,133 participants followed up for 22 years, was also evaluated.

In PREDIMED, compared with poor compliers with MedDiet (excluding wine), good compliers (excluding wine), had a multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 0.84 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.61-1.15] for CVD. For good compliers with MedDiet (including wine), the HR for CVD was 0.55 (95% CI 0.36-0.83). For all-cause mortality, MedDiet compliers (excluding wine) had HR of 0.77 (95% CI 0.68-0.87), which was 0.67 (95% CI 0.57-0.78) for MedDiet compliers (including wine). In exploratory dose-response analyses, reduced risk for death was not present in PREDIMED participants who drank three or more glasses of wine/day. Additionally, analyses least vulnerable to threats of abstainer bias were not significant and neither were multiplicative interaction terms for the wine item in the questionnaire. In the SUN cohort, no significant associations were observed between MedDiet compliance, wine, and CVD. However, for all-cause mortality, the HR was 0.94 (95% CI 0.71-1.26) for MedDiet compliers (excluding wine) and 0.54 (95% CI 0.28-1.04) for MedDiet compliers (including wine). When pooling both cohorts, wine consumption within the MedDiet was associated with lower all-cause mortality (P = .01).

In PREDIMED, moderate wine consumption, as part of the MedDiet, appeared to be associated with lower mortality and CVD risk. Some non-significant associations and interactions advise caution in interpretation of these findings.