A syndicated piece carried by AOL and picked up by Yahoo this spring took on a claim that has circulated across fitness accounts and wellness press for years: that tequila is the healthiest spirit on the shelf. The article, originally published by Chowhound, walked through the usual list of benefits attributed to the category, weight loss, blood sugar control, gut health, fewer hangovers, and concluded that most of it does not hold up.
The piece leaned on Medical News Today for the finding that there is no verifiable clinical evidence tequila itself improves health, and cited the World Health Organization's position that any level of alcohol consumption carries carcinogenic risk that outweighs any purported upside. It did credit tequila with one measurable edge: at under 100 calories an ounce, it sits among the less energy dense spirits, a point sourced to Healthline. VinePair reached a similar conclusion in a separate 2023 piece, tracing the health narrative to wellness influencers and outlets from Men's Health to Goop that have repeated the claim without scrutiny.
Where the agavin claim breaks down
The scientific hook behind most of these claims is agavins, the non-digestible fructans found in raw blue agave. A 2014 study covered by Time, run by Mexican researchers and later published in the journal Food and Function, found agavins lowered blood glucose and reduced food intake in mice. That is the study most wellness content still points to a decade later. The problem, as Healthline's own diabetes-focused writeup lays out, is that fermentation and distillation convert those same sugars into ethanol. By the time agave juice becomes tequila, the agavins are gone, and no human trials have tested the finished spirit itself. A separate mice study, industry writers note, also never involved tequila at all, only isolated agavin extract fed directly to animals.
The additive problem is the more concrete story
The more checkable number in this debate is not about mice, it is about labeling. VinePair's reporting cites the Tequila Matchmaker database, which tracks roughly 2,880 brands, as the source for an estimate that at least seven in ten tequilas sold contain some additive. Mexico's Consejo Regulador del Tequila permits up to one percent of a 100 percent agave bottle to be additive, glycerin, oak extract, caramel coloring or sugar based syrup among the common ones, without any change required to the label. That rule is the actual mechanism buyers should understand if they care about what is in the bottle, far more than any agavin folklore.
What changes for buyers
This is where our own blind scoring intersects with the story. Consumer roundups chasing the healthiest tequila angle have repeatedly pointed to Siete Leguas and The Wild Common as reference bottles precisely because they disclose no additives and use traditional tahona production. We have scored Siete Leguas Blanco at 92 and rated it Verified Pure, and we have Wild Common Blanco at 89, also Verified Pure. Neither brand is healthier in any clinical sense than a comparable blanco from a house we have not verified, but both are accurately what the label says they are, which is a narrower and more defensible claim than anything about blood sugar or gut flora. Buyers chasing a wellness angle would do better shopping for verified composition than for marketing built on a mouse study.
What we are watching
Whether any peer reviewed human trial on tequila or agavins in finished spirit form is published, since none currently exists. Whether the Consejo Regulador del Tequila revisits its one percent additive allowance or the labeling exemption tied to it. Whether wellness media outlets that have promoted tequila as a health drink, including the outlets named in VinePair's reporting, issue any correction or follow-up. And whether more brands move toward third-party additive disclosure rather than relying on category-wide health claims that current science does not support.