Health Benefits of Moderate Alcohol Consumption

[Steve C]

To the Group:

Below is something that cropped up in my in-box.
It's mostly weak science, but there's a lot of evidence in general that alcohol in
moderation may have health benefits.

One of the unstated problems with the finding of "people who drink moderately
are healthier" is that one presumes the direction of causality is that moderate
drinking leads to good health. Actually, the reverse is often the case; consider that
 chronically ill people are generally not served alcohol.  You won't find beer on the
menu at your local nursing home, for example.   Also, consider that diabetics are
routinely advised not to drink.  It might be safer to say that good health leads to
moderate drinking (or illness leads to abstinence), rather than moderate drinking
leads to good health.

All of which is irrelevant, of course, for those who cannot manage to drink in moderation. 
For those who have an addiction to alcohol and can't use moderately, the risks far
outweigh the benefits.  In a sense, this population is just a specific category
of the general observation that illness leads to abstinence.

Best wishes,

Steve

Steve Coulter, MD
SteveMDFP -at- gmail -dot- com
Groupmaster

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May 8, 2006
The Times
Beer's the way to stay ale 'n' hearty
Drunk in moderation, it has many health benefits
Dr Thomas Stuttaford
Beer drinkers from all over Europe met recently in Brussels to discuss the
medical advantages of drinking beer, a beverage praised over the years by
artists and writers but rarely by scientists. As a result, those who enjoy a
pint at the Adam and Eve from time to time are not always aware that beer,
taken in moderation, has the same advantages as other drinks plus one or two
of its own.
Beer contains antioxidants, so the beneficial effects of drinking on the
cardiovascular system are not confined to wine.

Chaucer, Housman, Shakespeare, Dickens, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas have
all praised beer in their writings, and Samuel Johnson even ran a brewery
for a time, but their high regard for beer was not so much for its good
effect on the physique as for its influence on their psyche and on the
community in which they lived.

Unlike those literary figures, the scientists who met in Brussels under the
chairmanship of Professor Jonathan Powell, of the Medical Research Council
human nutrition unit in Cambridge, were largely concerned with the influence
of beer on human health.

Professor Powell said that the media and the public had tended to focus on
the advantages of wine drinking in moderation. In his opinion there is
increasing evidence that the benefits of moderate drinking are more related
to the alcohol, whatever the nature of the drink, than to a particular
beverage. Beer also contains nutrients and other properties that encourage
good health.

In a controlled study in Germany, it was found that people who drank beer in
moderation were less likely to develop coronary heart disease than those who
drank other drinks.

Not only did the beer drinkers have better protection from heart attacks,
but there was supporting evidence for beer's cardio-protective effect and
for its help in altering the ratio of beneficial high-density lipoprotein
cholesterol to the pernicious low-density cholesterol.

There were also beneficial changes to the platelets — particles in the blood
involved in clotting — and in the amount of fibrinogen, another factor in
clotting, present in the blood.

As the average beer is only a third of the strength of the average wine, the
ease with which people can drink too much is less. There may be other
characteristics in the lifestyle of the beer-drinking fraternity that are
difficult to measure but may contribute to the apparent benefits of beer
drinking.

Earlier work among beer drinkers in the Czech Republic found that those men
with the lowest risk of having a heart attack drank between seven and 15
pints a week. Another study, from Australia, investigated the drinking
habits of 3,000 people in their seventies over the previous ten years and
found that those who drank one or two beers a day had a 20 per cent lower
risk of dying of heart disease than those who were teetotal or drank to
excess.

What is more, the advantages of moderate beer drinking are not confined to
the heart. Danish research has revealed that beer drinkers suffer less
frequently from kidney stones, and it is now becoming accepted that drinking
beer in moderation reduces the incidence of diabetes and osteoporosis,
although drinking to excess may increase the risk of both.

Beer drinkers are convinced that their tipple's wholesome ingredients,
including malted barley, hops and yeast, contribute to a healthy balanced
diet. Beer is rich in many vitamins of the B group and in such trace
elements as magnesium but is low in both iron and calcium.

Beer drinking in moderation is not even responsible for a large belly: glass
for glass, beer is less fattening than apple juice, milk or yoghurt.
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