Drink and run

Here’s a summary of an educational piece on the health benefits of alcohol consumption written by Time Magazine’s Sanjay Gupta, M.D., and posted on-line January 24:

Dr. Morten Gronbaek, epidemiologist with Denmark’s National Institute of

Public Health, found the highest risk of heart disease for people that don’t drink or exercise. If you do one or the other, your risk drops by 30 percent.

However, the combination of exercise with drinking lowered the risk by 50 percent.

According to Gronbaek, “There’s an additional protective effect to doing both.”

Other studies have appeared recently showing that alcohol can lower the risk of diabetes for postmenopausal women, decrease dementia rates in older adults and, in combination with caffeine, can limit brain damage after a stroke.

On the flip side, those at risk for breast cancer or family alcoholism should avoid alcohol.

“You wouldn’t advise everyone to drink,” says Gronbaek. “There’s absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect before age 45.”

Probably the most important advice is: “Moderation is everything. Gronbaek’s study, like most, stuck to the one-drink-a-day standard for women and up to two a day for men. And it goes without saying that you should never drink your weekly allotment all at once.”