More evidence that moderate drinking may benefit the heart

By Kathryn Doyle NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Two large studies published in June, one covering 52 countries around the globe and the other from Scandinavia, link low-to-moderate alcohol consumption to reduced risk of heart attack or a life-threatening flaw in the main artery from the heart. “There is now solid evidence that alcohol, when consumed on a regular basis and at low volumes (up to one drink for women and two drinks for men daily), confers protection against cardiovascular disease, whereas regular amounts of more than four to five drinks daily and heavy episodic drinking have (the) opposite effects,” write Drs. Stefan Kiechl and Johann Willeit, neurologists at Innsbruck Medical University in Austria, in an editorial in the journal Circulation. One of the new studies looked at drinking and risk of experiencing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), a “ballooning” of the main blood vessel from the heart that delivers blood to the trunk and lower body. Men, especially those over age 60, are most likely to have AAA.



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