Although Janzsky found that 3 – 5 alcoholic drinks per week is beneficial to heart health, he does caution that it isn’t necessary to drink to have a healthy heart, as the news release reports:
“I’m not encouraging people to drink alcohol all the time. We’ve only been studying the heart, and it’s important to emphasize that a little alcohol every day can be healthy for the heart. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessary to drink alcohol every day to have a healthy heart,” says Janszky.
In the heart attack study, 58,827 participants were categorized by how much and how often they drank. 2966 of the participants experienced an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between 1995 and the end of 2008. The adjusted analyses showed that each additional one-drink increment decreased the risk of AMI by 28 percent.
Alcohol may increase other problems
The researchers stressed that few participants in the study drank particularly much, so they cannot conclude that high alcohol intake protects against heart attack or heart failure. They also encourage looking at the findings in a larger context, since the risk of a number of other diseases and social problems can increase as a result of higher alcohol consumption.
For example, the researchers observed that the risk of dying from various types of cardiovascular disease increased with about five drinks a week and up, while those who drank more moderate amounts had the lowest risk. High alcohol consumption was also strongly associated with an increased risk of death from liver disease.
As the pharmaceutical commercials on US television always caution, it may be a good idea to consult with your physician to see whether light-to-moderate drinking is right for you.
Source: ScienceDaily.com- “Light-to-moderate drinking good for your heart”
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