Moderate Alcohol Consumption Decreases Risk of Heart Attack for Healthy Men

25/10/06 If you are a man who doesn't smoke, has a healthy diet, does plenty of exercise, and consumes alcohol in moderation, your chances of having myocardial infarction (heart attack) are lower than a man with a similar lifestyle who never drinks, say researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, USA.

Previous studies indicated that moderate alcohol consumption may lower heart attack risk for high risk people. This is the first study ever to show that this also applies to healthy men with healthy lifestyles.

You can read about this study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, and team, looked at information on 8,867 healthy men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The study had data on the their eating habits, alcohol consumption, exercise routines and body weight. None of the men was overweight - they all had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of under 25. All of them did moderate to vigorous exercise for 30 minutes or more per day. They all consumed plenty of vegetables, fruits, cereal fiber, chicken, fish, soy, nuts and polyunsaturated fat. Their consumption of trans-fat, red and processed meats, and multivitamins was low.

The researchers found that during the period 1986 to 2001:

-- 106 men had heart attacks

-- 1,282 men consumed about two drinks per day, of whom 8 had heart attacks

-- 714 men consumed over two drinks per day, of whom 9 had heart attacks

-- 1,889 men never drank, of whom 28 had heart attacks

The researchers said that the men who consumed about two drinks per day had the lowest risk of having a heart attack, while those who never drank had the highest. One quarter of all the heart attack patients consumed under 5 grams of alcohol per day.

Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal stressed that he would not advise people who never drink to start doing so just because of this study. The study just looked at heart health and did not take into account other possible risks, such as cancer.