ROME – One or two glasses of wine a day are good even to a bad heart. The important thing is to drink in moderation. A search of the Catholic University of Campobasso, published in the United States, demonstrates that the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption and regular alcohol are also valid in people who have been affected by stroke or other cardiovascular disease was an unresolved issue in medicine. While scientific research has shown growing evidence of the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption in healthy people, it was not clear whether this could happen even in those who had had a heart attack, stroke or other diseases of the cardiovascular system.
Alcohol? Little is good for the heart patient
A positive response is now a study conducted by research laboratories Catholic University of Campobasso: at moderate doses and as part of a healthy lifestyle, one or two glasses of wine a day, or the equivalent in beer or other alcoholic beverages, reducing the risk of death from any cause, even in people already suffering from ischemic heart disease. The research also offers another element to consider: that drinking is not only moderate but regular. Moderate consumption, distributed along the days of the week, is positive. The same amount of alcohol, drunk perhaps in a single weekend, is harmful to the contrary.
The research, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), was performed using the statistical method of meta-analysis, which allows one to combine different studies, carried out all over the world, placing them into one overall vision. In this case we have analyzed the best scientific research carried out in recent years: eight in all, in four countries: United States, Sweden, Japan and Great Britain. Will consider all people already suffering a cardiovascular event. Over the years following the onset of the disease, patients were followed by researchers to understand what the habits were, including alcohol consumption, which can help prevent a new clinical event. The meta-analysis allowed joining the search as if it were a single study, for a total of 16,351 persons examined.
“What we have seen – says Simona Costanzo, epidemiology and first author of the study – is that regular and moderate consumption of alcohol has a beneficial effect in patients suffering from heart attack, stroke or other ischemic cardiovascular disease. Not only are less likely to be newly infected with such diseases, but also the mortality rate for any other reason, is lower than those who do not consume any alcoholic beverage. “
The observed effect is very similar to what was already seen in healthy people.”The reduction of risk – more Costanzo – is about 20%, saving an event every 5 patients, a considerable advantage, similar to one already registered by us in healthy individuals,” The key word is ‘moderation’, “We are talking about — says Licia Iacoviello, medical internist, head of the laboratory of genetics and environmental epidemiology and head of the Moli-sani Project – an alcohol consumption is far from what we see sometimes in television dramas. The term moderation, in fact, we refer to drinking as an act included in a healthy lifestyle. And so once again, shows the winning Mediterranean diet, where a glass of wine or beer less frequently during meals has always been an integral part. “
Tags: alcohol, alcohol consumption, alcoholic, Alcoholism
