Men Should Drink More For Better Heart Health

If there is one thing that annoys the general public most about health advice, it is that it changes each week. Many people we speak to say that they now just ignore the latest recommendations from health organizations because the chances are the information will be updated in a few months anyway. We are told to drink more coffee, less tea, eat more fruit, less dairy. Do gentle exercise everyday, or intensive once a week. Why should we listen to expert advice when they can never make their minds up?

Maybe it is time for us to listen as some good advice that has just come out of Spain. The latest research has shown that men that drink alcohol are at less risk of developing heart disease. In the study, Spanish researchers found that men who drank were up to 1/3 less likely to develop serious heart problems. Better still, the more they drank, the lower the risk. Women do not benefit though, bad luck!

The Spanish Study

The study looked at Spanish men and women (15,630 men and 25,808 women) from 29 years to 69 years of age over a 10 year period. The results were very surprising. Those that drank one drink a day were 35% less likely to suffer from heart disease. Those that drank the equivalent of 4 to 11 measures of spirit every day were 50% less likely to develop heart disease.

In Spain many people consume large quantities of wine. However, the study showed that the type of alcohol made no difference to the reduced risk of heart disease. Beer is as effective as wine.

Currently the reason for the health benefit of drinking is still unknown, but it is thought that drinking larger quantities of alcohol raises the HDL type of cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins), which is the good cholesterol that protects our arteries (LDL being the bad cholesterol).

A Word of Caution

However, lets be clear about this. This research does not make heavy drinking a healthy living choice. Drinking heavily still raises the risk of liver problems, stroke and of course obesity which leads to many other health problems.

Reference

Alcohol intake and the Risk of coronary heart disease in the Spanish EPIC cohort study
Heart, Nov 2009; doi:10.1136/hrt.2009.173419. Abstract – http://heart.bmj.com

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Tags: alcohol, heart, heart disease, spanish study

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.