Study: Frequent Drinking Can Help Heart

By Janet McConnaughey

As little as half an alcoholic drink a day can reduce the risk of heart
attacks, whether the beverage of choice is beer, red wine, white wine or
liquor, new research shows.

Scientists have known that drinking can prevent heart attacks, but the study
suggests that how often you imbibe is a lot more important than what or how
much.

Whether you drink with your meal or at some other time also appears
irrelevant.

"It was a surprise that -- almost regardless of other factors associated
with drinking -- frequency of use seemed to be what reduced the subsequent
risk of a heart attack," said Dr. Kenneth Mukamal of Harvard University
Medical School, who led the study.

Those who drank at least three days a week had about one-third fewer heart
attacks than did non-drinkers. And it made almost no difference whether the
drinking consisted of half a drink or four. Those who imbibed only once or
twice a week had only a 16 percent lower risk of a heart attack.

Some studies have indicated that alcohol raises the level of "good"
cholesterol and also thins the blood, warding off the clots that cause heart
attacks. But alcohol breaks down fairly rapidly in the body and its effects
on red blood cells are short-lived, according to Mukamal.

Mukamal speculated that regular, moderate drinking is beneficial because it
helps keep the blood thinned.

"We think it may be much like people who take aspirin every day or every
other day. A little bit of alcohol on a regular basis helps keep the
platelets from becoming sticky and prevents heart attacks," he said.

He noted that other studies have found that people with a gene that keeps
alcohol longer in their system seem to benefit the most from moderate
drinking. "That helps reinforce the notion that maintaining a low level of
exposure is the way to go," he said.

The study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Mukamal and other doctors emphasized that the study applies only to moderate
drinkers. The dangers of heavy drinking are well-established and include
alcoholism, drunken driving, and damage to the liver and brain.

Studies have also found that women who have two or more drinks a day are 41
percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women who do not drink.

"I don't think any doctor would advise a patient to start drinking to
prevent heart disease," said Dr. Gary Francis, director of the coronary
intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic.

"We all, both the media and physicians who see patients, need to be careful
that this isn't construed as a license to drink heavily. Certainly we don't
want to exchange one public health problem for another."

Mukamal and every other doctor interviewed for comment emphasized that
people should talk to their physicians about drinking.

Doctors have long believed that red wine explains the so-called French
Paradox -- the fact that the French have fewer heart attacks than Americans
even though their food is richer. But the new study adds to the evidence
that it is the alcohol itself, and not something found only in red wine,
such as red pigment, that is good for the heart.

Mukamal analysed data from Harvard's long-term Health Professionals
Follow-Up Study, which involved 51,529 male health professionals -- doctors,
osteopaths, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and veterinarians.

He looked at 38,077 of them, eliminating people who had stopped drinking
within the previous 10 years and those with histories of cancer and diseases
of the heart or blood vessels. The study is funded by the National
Institutes of Health.

Dr. Lynn Smaha, a cardiologist in Sayre, Pa., and a past president of the
American Heart Association, said the study leaves some important questions
unanswered. Among them: whether it would apply to a wider group than health
professionals, who may take better care of themselves than the average
drinker.

Smaha also noted that the overall rate of heart attacks -- 1,418 cases out
of 38,000 people -- was very low, for reasons that were not clear.

Copyright © Associated Press

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Bigbazza (Barry)..(The Boy from Oz)