S.F. Research Hospitals Say 1-2 Cups of Booze a Day Keep the Doctor Away
By Joe Eskenazi in Health
Wednesday, Mar. 18 2009 @ 5:30AM
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A paper in the current edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society penned by researchers from U.C. San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center claims that "moderate drinkers" of one or two servings of alcohol a day are 25 percent less likely to be struck down by an untimely death than those who drink more. No surprise there -- but moderate drinkers are also 25 percent less likely to drop dead than non-drinkers. What's more, unlike other studies that affirmed the health benefits of moderate drinking but did not factor in details like age, sex, race, , smoking, or obesity, this study did -- and moderate drinkers still came out on top.
The study, which was conducted on 12,519 participants 55 years old or
more, also found that moderate drinkers were better educated, had
higher incomes, had amassed more wealth and were less functionally
limited (i.e. able to carry out more basic daily activities) than their
hard-drinking or non-drinking colleagues. Incidentally, a "drink" is
considered to be 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces
of the hard stuff.
Lead author Dr. Sei J.Lee -- a staffer at the VA and a UCSF professor -- said further study past the self-reported data he culled is required before moderate drinking can definitively be declared a boon to health. Lee's advice is not uncontroversial: Find teetotalers and give 'em a drink.
"What we call for in the paper is an intervention trial in which we randomly ask non-drinkers to either begin moderate drinking or continue to abstain and then compare them over time," says the doctor. "People have made the argument that such a study carreis the risk of creating harm for the people we ask to drink, which is true. However, if we find that alcohol is as helpful as it appears to be, there is a substantial overall benefit to be gaine.d It's really the only way to find out."
In other words: Who wants to rush DKE next year with Dr. Lee? Wooooo!
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Lead author Dr. Sei J.Lee -- a staffer at the VA and a UCSF professor -- said further study past the self-reported data he culled is required before moderate drinking can definitively be declared a boon to health. Lee's advice is not uncontroversial: Find teetotalers and give 'em a drink.
"What we call for in the paper is an intervention trial in which we randomly ask non-drinkers to either begin moderate drinking or continue to abstain and then compare them over time," says the doctor. "People have made the argument that such a study carreis the risk of creating harm for the people we ask to drink, which is true. However, if we find that alcohol is as helpful as it appears to be, there is a substantial overall benefit to be gaine.d It's really the only way to find out."
In other words: Who wants to rush DKE next year with Dr. Lee? Wooooo!
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