Drinking alcohol can reduce the risk of heart disease - but only if you're over 55.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have worked out that alcohol is responsible for far fewer deaths than previously published figures suggest, but only amongst men over 55 and women over 65.
It has long been understood that there are beneficial effects on the heart from drinking alcohol. The French have a much lower incidence of heart disease than the British and other Europeans and it is thought that their relatively higher consumption of red wine may be the reason.
In a plethora of complicated statistics, Annie Britton and Klim McPherson of LSHTM argue in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health that alcohol can be blamed for an extra 7,000 deaths for men and 4,000 a year for women. This is much less than the figure of 40,000 quoted by the British government in 1998.
But, because many alcohol-related deaths are in young people - ie from traffic accidents, cirrhosis and suicide - the health-giving effects of drinking alcohol are likely only to be noticed in the older age groups, who are most at risk from heart disease, and therefore most likely to show the beneficial effects alcohol has on the heart.
The research team advises on the best way to correct the imbalance - give up drinking until you reach middle age. While no rational government would ever consider eliminating drinking altogether, it says, the most successful drinking policy would be for men to abstain totally until they are 35, and then drink eight units (about eight glasses of wine) a week. Women should keep off alcohol until they are 55, and then drink three units a week.
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