Alcohol helps men’s hearts?
Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major Spanish study has found. But Britain’s Stroke Association noted that overall, evidence indicated that people who regularly consumed a large amount of alcohol had a three-fold increased risk of stroke.
The research, which involved more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men – although female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent, the study in Heart found.
Spain is a country with relatively high rates of alcohol consumption and low rates of coronary heart disease. The research involved men and women aged between 29 and 69, who were first asked to detail their lifetime drinking habits, and then followed for 10 years.
The research team say they’ve eliminated the “sick abstainers” risk by differentiating between those who had never drunk and those forced to stop by illness. This has been used in the past to explain fewer heart-related deaths among drinkers on the basis that those who are unhealthy already are less likely to drink.
Researchers put participants into six categories – from lifetime non-drinkers to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day – that is around 8 bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.
For those drinking little – less than a shot of vodka a day for instance – the risk of heart disease was reduced by 35%. And for those drinking anything from 3 to more than 11 shots each day, the risk was around 50% less.
Women, who suffer fewer heart problems than men, did not get the same benefits. This could be due to the fact that women process alcohol differently, and that female hormones protect against heart disease in younger age groups, researchers said.
The kind of alcohol drunk did not seem to make a difference, but protection was increased for those drinking moderate to high amounts of varied drinks.
Although exact processes are unclear, alcohol helps to raise high-density lipoproteins, or “good cholesterol”, which helps stop so-called bad cholesterol from building up in the arteries.
UK experts said the findings should be treated with caution because they don’t take drink-related diseases into account.
“Whilst moderate alcohol intake can lower the risk of having a heart attack, coronary heart disease is just one type of heart disease. Cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease, is associated with high alcohol intake and can lead to a poor quality of life and premature death,” one expert said, adding “The heart is just one of many organs in the body. While alcohol could offer limited protection to one organ, abuse of it can damage the heart and other organs such as the liver, pancreas and brain.”
Another expert commentator added, “While there is good evidence that moderate consumption is protective in people who are at substantial risk of heart disease – which excludes most people under the age of 40 – we also know that most people underestimate how much they drink. This paper adds to the existing literature but should not be considered as definitive. ”
The UK’s recommended consumption level is no more than two to three units of alcohol a day for women – the equivalent of one standard glass of wine – and three to four units for men.
