Sorry, But Drinking Alcohol Provides No Heart Benefit
Thursday, July 10, 2014 - 17:10
in Health & Medicine
People love to latch onto studies that match their confirmation bias, so studies claiming health benefits for red wine, chocolate and organic food get a lot of attention and not much skepticism about controls. Any epidemiology claim will do when it comes to finding benefit or harm. A new review calls into question previous studies which suggest that consuming light-to-moderate amounts of alcohol (0.6-0.8 fluid ounces/day) may have a protective effect on cardiovascular health. Instead, they find that reducing the amount of alcoholic beverages consumed, even for light-to-moderate drinkers, is more likely to improve cardiovascular health, body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure. read more