Medical Researchers Advice: Drink Alcohol

[PointRadix]

People who do not drink alcohol may finally have a reason to start – a study by a Medical University, recently published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research shows non-drinkers who begin taking the occasional tipple live longer and are less likely to develop heart disease. People who started drinking in middle age were 38 percent less likely to have a heart attack or other serious heart event than abstainers – even if they were overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure or other heart risks. Many previous studies have shown that light to moderate drinkers are healthier than teetotalers, but inevitably, those researchers have cautioned that there is no reason for the abstinent to start drinking. Now there may be a reason, according to the more recent study.

The research team studied the medical records of 7,697 people between the ages of 45 and 64 who were originally non-drinkers, as part of a larger study. Over 10 years, 6 percent of these volunteers began drinking. Over the next four years the new drinkers were monitored and when compared to the persistent non-drinkers, there was a 38 percent drop in new cardiovascular disease. The findings held even when the researchers factored in heart disease risks such as smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, race, education levels, exercise and cholesterol. Several of the volunteers had more than one risk factor and still benefited from adding alcohol. Half of them were wine drinkers only; there was a much bigger benefit for wine-only drinkers.

Now the same team has started a new study in which they intend to randomly assign non-drinkers to start either having a glass of wine a day, a glass of grape juice, or grape juice spiked with antioxidants, compounds believed to help fight heart disease.

But they point out that the findings do not necessarily mean people should drink freely. In another study recently published, other researchers found that how much and how often people drink affects their risk of death from several causes. That study of 44,000 people showed that men who had five or more drinks on days they did drink were 30 percent more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than men who had just one drink a day – regardless of what their average drinking intake was.

Notwithstanding this, the team found that regular, moderate drinking was healthier than having the occasional binge. Even men who drank every single day of the year were 20 percent less likely to die of heart disease than men who drank just one to 36 days per year – if they drank moderately.

"Taken together, our results reinforce the importance of drinking in moderation," the researchers wrote.

Source: Finally, a reason to start drinking alcohol

[Marulus]

What about those who started to drink at a younger age?

[PointRadix]

Originally Posted by Marulus

What about those who started to drink at a younger age?

Unfortunately, that is not mentioned in the article, it was a study of a middle-aged group. But if there is genuinely a positive effect on older people, there may still be some hope for those who started drinking (at least in moderation) at a younger age.

[Marulus]

Conventional wisdom says that alcohol destroys the organism and makes life shorter. Recently a father of a friend of mine passed away and he was 70. I knew about that man that he was drinking heavily for the whole of his life, at least for the last fifty years, every single day. Upon hearing the notice of his death, I said unto myself: had he not drunk so much, maybe he would have lived until his nineties. But then another idea occurred to my mind: is it maybe that alcohol protects the body from some kinds of diseases, but causes others? I have not seen any proof that non-drinkers live significantly longer than the drinkers.

[PointRadix]

One of the recurring themes of these "benefits of alcohol" reports is that wine, especially red wine, is usually highlighted. So, it is likely that these benefits of moderate consumption are not so much related to the ethanol itself, but to some of the other substances that form in wines.

No responsible medical authority could seriously "prescribe" alcoholism, or claim that these studies demonstrate that potential benefits of moderate use could outweigh the established costs of excess use. The point is that regardless of the best of intentions, it would require (in practice) a high degree of self-discipline on the part of the "moderate user" to remain so (and not progressively increase in take over time). Simply because the "subjects" of this study started drinking at 45-64 age does not necessarily imply that this will not be the case for them.

[Savorgnan]

Drinking two-three glasses of red wine every day helps to live long. Small regular alcohol consumption stimulates the heart.
But heavy drinking ruins your health. You'll have a shorter life, of a lesser quality.

To be synthetic:

-Regular moderate alcohol consumption is harmless before 40 (years old), and benefitial after 40.

-Heavy alcohol consumption is harmful at any age.

[M.R.]

Originally Posted by Marulus

What about those who started to drink at a younger age?

We're even more healthy.

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by Marulus

What about those who started to drink at a younger age?

Oenocracy maybe is good for the spirit (that's the case to say so ), but it's bad for the liver as well.

[Monolith]

Medical Researchers Advice: Drink Alcohol

Finally some good news

[Menydh]

At last some researchers who have earned the funding given to research.