To Your Health?
Dateline: 06/28/99
Findings of a new study, conducted over a 21-year period, seems
to
contradict recent reports that moderate consumption of alcohol
has
significant health benefits. In fact, the opposite could be true.
A report published in the British Medical Journal indicates that
men who
have five drinks a day are twice as likely to die from stroke
than non
drinkers. Those men who drank an average of only two drinks a
day had a
higher risk of dying from all causes, compared with men who consumed
fewer alcoholic beverages.
The 21-year study was comprised of 5,766 men aged 35 to 64 from
various workplaces in Glasgow, Clydebank and Grangemouth, Scotland.
"The overall association between alcohol consumption and death
is
unfavorable for men drinking over 11 drinks a week and does not
support
the promotion of increased drinking for reasons of health," conclude
a team
of researchers led by Carole L. Hart, a research fellow at the
department
of public health at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Conflicting Studies
This new study conflicts with recent studies in the British Medical
Journal
that moderate alcohol consumption promotes coronary health and
a study
from Harvard's Medical School and School of Public Health that
indicated
that mild to moderate drinkers have a lower mortality rate than
people who
are abstinent.
These findings prompted the Wine Institute in the United States
to lobby
for the right to place labels on their products promoting the
health benefit
of drinking wine, which sparked off a controversy involving the
Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
One Senator asked the government to investigate whether the Wine
Institute and senior federal officials conspired to develop government
policy that promotes the health benefits of alcohol, which caused
former
Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Robert Rubin to have the department
"rethink" the approval of wine labels.
A Moot Question
Although some studies show that moderate alcohol consumption may
boost heart health by raising levels of high-density lipoprotein
(or "good")
cholesterol, this new research indicates otherwise.
Not all recent research has pointed to the health benefits of
moderate
alcohol consumption, however. One recent study indicated that
drinking
alcohol regularly -- even at moderate levels -- could lead to
cirrhosis, a
liver disease normally associated with alcoholism.
Dr. Charles Lieber of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New
York
conducted a study of people who had rich diets supplemented with
minerals and vitamins. They were given a daily dose of alcohol
that was
less than the amount needed to produce intoxication. "After 18
days,
subjects showed an eight-fold increase in liver fat, the pre-condition
for
cirrhosis," said Lieber. "When you burn alcohol, you are not
burning fat."
For those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism, whether nor
not
moderate drinking has health benefits is a moot question. For
most chronic
alcohol abusers, drinking moderately is not a realistic option.