EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NUTRITION
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Moderate drinking indicates good health
DOI: 10.1038/ejcn.2010.61
The average health status of people who drink low or moderate amounts of alcohol is better than tee-totallers suggests a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study found the majority of health benefits come indirectly from alcoholic intake though less stress, increased physical activity and improved social status.
Boris Hansel and colleagues studied 149,773 people from the Urban Paris-Ile-de-France Cohort and split them into four groups; never, low, moderate and high alcohol intake. The low and moderate groups of both males and females displayed a more favourable health status than the groups that never drunk or drunk large amounts. Moderate male drinkers were more likely to have lower cardiovascular risk, heart rate, stress, depression and body mass index. They also scored higher with subjective health measures such as respiratory function and physical activity. Similar trends were seen in moderate female drinkers who had lower blood pressure and waist circumference. Importantly, the findings showed moderate alcohol consumption is a powerful general indicator of optimal social status and this could be a key reason for improved health in these subjects.
For both genders, alcohol intake was strongly associated with increased concentrations of High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) in the blood plasma. However, it could not be shown that the influence of alcohol on HDL had a cardioprotective effect and the authors stress these results can not yet be taken as evidence of alcohol providing cardiovascular protection.
Author contact:
Boris Hansel (Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, France)
Tel: +33 6 11 30 74 69
E-mail: [email protected]
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