Lifestyle validation, or confounding variable?
BBC News : Alcohol 'protects men's hearts'
Wine, beer, vodka – the type of drink did not appear to change the results
Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.
The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.
Female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent, the study in Heart found.
…
The researchers from centres across Spain placed the participants into six categories – from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day. This would be the equivalent of consuming about eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.
How much drinking are we talking about here, really:
For those drinking little – less than a shot of vodka a day for instance – the risk was reduced by 35%. And for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less.
Wow. That’s a lot more than a glass of wine with dinner.
The data on this isn’t settled (by a long shot). The biggest thing I get from this is there’s a lot of drinking going on in Spain.
Based on this result, I will never die, so long as my liver doesn’t give up on me.
Also: You’ve clearly never been to spain. I don’t think there’s a sober person in that country ever. And I say this with the greatest affection and respect for them. They know how to drink and how to siesta. If we adopted their lifestyle and work habits, our GDP would drop by a third. But it would be so WORTH IT.
ShadowFax for president!
So I can drink a ton and not have to worry about my heart! That’s awesome! One less thing to worry about while I’m drunk and driving while texting and futzing with my iPod.
Of course I can look forward to some esophageal varices…
Between this news and this –
http://www.backpacker.com/beer_hydrate_water/blogs/daily_dirt/1074?utm_source=newsletter01&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter01
I better head to the liquor store. I have some drinking to do…all for my health of course.
Haven’t we known this for a while? Heart Attacks almost never kill alcoholics. I agree that moderate drinking is good, but I would suspect that the 11 shot a day people have a very high all cause mortality. I assumed this is one of the reasons we don’t publicize the health benefits of moderate drinking–because some people would go nuts, “If a little is good, a lot must be great!” Sounds like BBC let the cat out of the bag. GI bleed mortality numbers are going to go through the roof!