NEW support for the claim that alcohol consumption can protect against heart disease is contained in two research papers published in the British Medical Journal yesterday. However, Irish heart experts warned that the studies were not a licence for people to "drink their heads off."
One study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston concluded that moderate consumption of any alcoholic drink can reduce the risk of heart disease. "The benefits of wine, beer or spirits are attributable primarily to the alcohol content rather than to other components of each drink."
In the second study, carried out by a team in Copenhagen, 2,826 men aged between 53 and 74 were examined. It was found that the more cholesterol the men had in their blood, the greater was the benefit of alcohol.
Irish heart experts, responding to the findings, said the key word in relation to alcohol consumption was "moderation."
"My main caveat in terms of publishing this kind of information in the media is that it does not give people a licence to drink their heads off," said cardiac surgeon, Ms Eilis McGovern.
The recommended weekly alcohol intake for adults was 14 units for women and 21 for men, she said. "That really is very modest. In Ireland a pint would be two units, so a man drinking 10 pints a week would be at the upper end of the scale, and for many Irishmen that would be considered very little."
Cardiologist and president of the Irish Heart Foundation, Prof Ian Graham, said. "We would be very slow to encourage people to begin taking alcohol if they did not already drink."
While moderate drinking might be beneficial, the negative effects of alcohol consumption appeared very quickly when the recommended intake limits were exceeded, he said.
The cardiac surgeon Mr Maurice Neligan said diet was only one factor in heart disease. "We are still a long, long way from under standing the cause of heart disease," he said.
