September 25, 2005

Alcohol in Moderation is Good For You

This excerpt from Eating Well magazine clearly cites the coronary benefits of a couple of drinks a day.
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"Modern physicians first began to suspect that alcohol might protect against heart disease almost a century ago, when autopsies revealed that the arteries of heavy drinkers were remarkably free of atherosclerosis. Researchers in the 1970s began to look at large populations of people to compare drinkers and non-drinkers and their risk of heart disease. In 1974, Arthur Klasky, M.D., a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland California, published the first epidemiological evidence that consuming alcohol was associated with a lower risk of coronary disease. In a recent update of those original findings, which now include data from 128,934 people who have been followed for more than 20 years, he and his colleagues calculated that people who imbibe one to two drinks a day enjoy a 32% lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease than those who abstain from alcohol.
"The benefits show up in men and women, in people with diabetes and without, in all ethnic groups across the board," says Klasky. More than 100 studies, in fact, conducted in countries around the world, have confirmed that people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol are about one-third less likely to get heart disease or dies of a heart attack than those who do not drink at all." (From: October/November 2005 Issue of Eating Well magazine Special Report: The Power of Spirits: New science explores just how much a glass of cheer can do for your health; by Peter Jaret)

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