Here’s What You Should Know about Wines and Menstrual Cycles

Let’s start with the question: how does a woman’s body react and change throughout their menstrual cycle? As usual, this relates to a hormonal cycle. When a woman’s period begins, her estrogen level is typically low. This is when her period up to 14 days later—the first half of her cycle—, where her body assumes to be pregnant, so her body builds up estrogen.

For most women, their ovulation—the second half of the cycle or luteal phase—happens on the 14th day, wherein both estrogen and progesterone levels increase. In this period, her body will prepare for a fertilized egg. Now if she doesn’t get pregnant, her hormones will drop once more, and that’s the moment when she’ll have her period.

Aside from the monthly period, many women have another thing in common—wine lovers. Healthy skin, youthful look, strong bone health, and mental capacity are a few of the many reasons why women drink wines. The question is, what are the influences of wine during a woman’s period? Let’s figure it out here.

1. Causes irregular period

Alcohols, including wines, may temporarily and abnormally increase a woman’s estrogen and testosterone levels, which may alter during a menstrual period. This condition will result in unexpected periods or missed periods.

2. Pain lasts longer

Alcohol consumption leads to water retention, causing women to be more susceptible to cramps. Most women suffer from menstrual pain; however, alcohol will intensify it more due to dehydration.

3. Turns PMS even more awful

Most women tend to be irritable on or before their period; it’ll more likely be doubled or perhaps tripled when awful post-drinking cramps hit them hard. Worse is menstrual symptoms like headaches, mood fluctuations, and breast tenderness may aggravate the situation.

4. Deplete magnesium level more

During a woman’s cycle, it’s normal when magnesium levels fluctuate. However, alcohol will worsen this fluctuation and lead to an even more depleted magnesium level. As a result, women will be low in blood, feel dizzy, and crave sweet stuff more. Of course, the last cause can potentially lead to weight gain.

On the other hand, wines still offer a myriad of health to the overall women’s health as follows:

Natural Sunscreen

Wines contain flavonoids, which according to the joint study conducted by the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Barcelona is a compound that can protect your skin against any free radicals and detrimental effects of UV or sun’s ultraviolet rays. Just bear in mind that there are more flavonoids in drier wines. Hence, together with sunblock application, take a glass of wine or those trendy wine popsicles out there.

Anti-aging

I bet most women wanted to stay looking younger. Well, that’s not an issue anymore. Just sipping a glass of Sokolin albarino wine or other wines on a regular basis can make you look younger. This is why wines are considered as the alcoholic elixir of youth. However, this is not only based on hearsay.

The Public Library of Science Medicine published a study about women who are in their fifties and are regularly drinking a glass of wine or lesser. The researcher concluded that these women aged, better, stayed healthier, and had lived longer.

Another study conducted at the University of Texas discovered that participants of the study who wine drinkers outlived their sober peers. The study claimed the reason for this is the compound resveratrol is believed to have that anti-aging property, which protects tissues in the body from aging.

Protect Women From Cognitive Decline

Aged women tend to suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s more than men worldwide; specifically, women tend to have one out of 6 chances to suffer from this cognitive decline. Studies show that women’s brain cells die faster than those of men. While females are more likely to live longer than males, the possibility of suffering from cognitive decline is also high in women.

Thankfully, one review in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment had concluded that people who moderately consume a glass of wine and other kinds of liquor are 23% less likely to have symptoms of dementia and suffer from other memory problems compared to those non-drinkers. Hence, make sure to grab a glass of wine once a day.

Osteoporosis Treatment

Most women are prone to osteoporosis, according to medical statistics. First, women tend to have thinner and smaller bones compared to men. Second, estrogen—women’s hormone that supports bone health—significantly decreases sharply as soon as women reach menopausal period, causing a loss in bone density to most women.

Recent studies show that red wines can increase both men and women’s spinal bone density. Resveratrol found in wines doesn’t only make you feel younger, but can also increase one’s spinal bone density as well as a viable osteoporosis treatment.