Daily Glass of Beer, Wine Might Do a Heart Good Thursday, March 23, 2017 THURSDAY, March 23, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Having a drink each day may help protect a person's heart against disease, a large-scale study suggests. But don't bend that elbow too often: drinking to excess can increase your risk for a variety of heart problems, the study also showed. Researchers tracked more than 1.9 million healthy British adults and found that having the occasional drink was tied to reductions in the risk of heart attack, sudden heart death, heart failure and stroke, compared to non-drinkers. In the study, "moderate" drinking was defined as 7 pints of regular beer or 1.5 bottles of wine in one week, researchers said in background notes. Drinking more than that increased the risk of many heart health problems, researchers found. Those included sudden heart death, heart failure, cardiac arrest and stroke. "We have shown that heavy drinking increases a person's risk of developing a variety of different types of cardiovascular disease as well as raising their risk of dying from non-cardiovascular causes," said lead researcher Steven Bell.

He's a genetic epidemiologist with the University of Cambridge in England. Despite these results, non-drinkers shouldn't feel pressure to pick up a bottle for their heart health, even though the study showed some potential benefit from casual drinking, Bell said. "There are safer and more effective ways of reducing cardiovascular risk, such as increasing levels of physical activity, maintaining a healthy diet and quitting smoking, which do not incur increased risks of harm such as alcohol dependence, liver disease and certain types of cancer," Bell said.best wine list paris For this study, researchers at the University of Cambridge and University College London investigated the potential link between alcohol consumption and 12 cardiovascular diseases by analyzing electronic health records for nearly 2 million adults with good heart health.best wine tour champagne

The investigators found that moderate drinkers had a 32 percent lower risk of heart attack, 56 percent lower risk of sudden heart death, 24 percent lower risk of heart failure, and 12 percent decreased risk of ischemic stroke. This type of stroke occurs when a clot blocks the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain. But people who went over the line into heavy drinking wound up with increased heart health risks, including a 21 percent higher risk of sudden heart death, a 22 percent higher risk of heart failure, a 50 percent increased risk of cardiac arrest, a 33 percent increased risk of ischemic stroke and a 37 percent increased risk of bleeding in the brain.best wine from brazil The findings were reported March 22 in the British Medical Journal.best washington red wines 2015 The new study is consistent with earlier results that have indicated a potential heart health benefit from an occasional drink, but it amplifies the message since it involved millions of patients, said Dr. Allan Stewart, director of aortic surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.buying wine off amazon

"With this degree of power in the study, it's pretty good evidence you are benefitting your health by having a few drinks a week, or a drink or two a day," said Stewart, who wasn't involved in the study. There are several potential ways that casual drinking might benefit heart health, although none have been proven, Bell and Stewart said. Alcohol consumption has been linked to increases in "good" HDL cholesterol and properties in blood that reduce clotting, Bell said. the best homemade wine kitsIt's also possible that moderate drinking helps reduce your stress levels, Stewart said. Both men noted that this study was not a formal experiment and did not prove a cause-and-effect link between moderate drinking and heart health, even though it involved many people. However, the results indicate that U.S. guidelines for healthy drinking appear to be on the right track, said Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

"The guidelines basically say if you're a man, never have more than two drinks in a day, and if you're a woman, never have more than one drink a day," said Mukamal, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study. "That's a simple message, and yet more Americans don't follow it than do." U.S. guidelines consider a drink to be 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of liquor, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. SOURCES: Steven Bell, genetic epidemiologist, University of Cambridge, England; Allan Stewart, M.D., director, aortic surgery, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City; Kenneth Mukamal, M.D., MPH, associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston; British Medical Journal, March 22, 2017 Copyright (c) 2017 HealthDay. More Health News onCheers to Red Wine It’s an integral part of culture, history and anthropology. Enjoying it is an art form – both in tasting practice and culinary preparation. There are many reasons to appreciate wine, but did you know that from an anti-aging point of view, it’s one of the best things that you can do for your health?

Find out why you need potassium and how to get enough in your diet! Bob Harper's Gut-Busting Plan It’s an old-fashioned idea – but it still works: eating less and moving more are the winning combination when it comes to...Throughout the years scientists have documented the benefits of red wine — for heart health, cholesterol control and possibly even cancer prevention — in numerous studies. But what about its cousin, the white kind? The short answer is that the evidence supporting white wine's health benefits, while still limited, is growing. While previous studies on the elixir have been mostly focused on testing in animals or on testing the components of the drink itself, scientists have recently reported on two randomized clinical trials that found good news for white wine enthusiasts. The first study, called In Vino Veritas (In Wine, Truth) involved tracking 146 subjects half of whom drank pinot noir, and half of whom drank a white chardonnay-pinot over a year.

The researchers reported at a European Society of Cardiology meeting last year that those who worked out twice per week and drank wine — either kind — saw a significant improvement in cholesterol levels. The second, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, had a similar design. Researchers in Israel recruited 224 volunteers with diabetes 2 to drink 150 mL of either white wine, red wine or mineral water (the control) with dinner every day for two years. They were encouraged to eat a Mediterranean diet, which includes mostly plant-based foods and replaces butter with olive oil, but their caloric intake was not restricted. [Surprising finding from heart study: Moderate drinking may have ‘cardiotoxic’ effects in elderly hearts] The researchers measured the participants in numerous ways, including lipid and glycemic control profiles, cardiovascular workups and quality of life indexes, before, during and after the intervention at 0, six and 24 months respectively. They asked the participants to return bottles to try to improve adherence and asked them to complete a different questionnaire about alcohol intake outside of the study.

The results were compelling: Drinking a glass of red wine (but not white wine) every day appeared to improve cardiac health and cholesterol management. But both red and white wine seemed to improve glucose control in some patients. The researchers, from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev–Soroka Medical Center and Nuclear Research Center Negev, Israel, said that the study "suggests that initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics as part of a healthy diet is apparently safe and modestly decreases cardiometabolic risk." [Red wine’s heralded ingredient — resveratrol — may actually hinder benefits of exercise] Full of the same plant flavonoids in red wine that are thought to have a protective effect, white wine has been studied significantly less despite some promising initial findings. White wine has been shown by researchers at the University of Barcelona to be higher in antioxidants and has been associated with weight loss and anti-aging effects.