A daily dose of the alcoholic beverage of your choice can help keep your arteries healthy and reduce the risk of heart disease or even death. New research shows wine, beer, and liquor are equally effective -- in moderation, of course -- in preventing stiff arteries, which can lower the risk of heart disease.
Researchers say the findings show that many of the heart-healthy benefits of drinking alcohol aren't limited to red wine, but wine drinkers did experience a slight advantage over beer and hard liquor drinkers in at least one measure of heart disease risk.
The study, presented at the Eighteenth Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension in New York City, looked at the drinking habits of 684 healthy European men and women from six different counties.
Researchers then compared the effects of moderate drinking, defined as no more than one glass of wine or beer or less than a shot of liquor per day, vs. abstaining on artery elasticity, which is an indicator of how well arteries respond to stress. The more stiff and less elastic an artery is, the more likely it is to cause trouble, such as trigger a heart attack or stroke.
The study found that moderate drinkers had increased elasticity in both small and large arteries as well as lower heart rates compared with nondrinkers.
Researcher Reuven Zimlichman, MD, chief of medicine and hypertension at Wolfson Medical Center and Tel Aviv University in Israel, says although the study was designed to look at drinking's effect on the arteries, finding a lower heart or pulse rate among moderate drinkers is also an important indicator of improved heart health.
Zimlichman says the benefits of moderate drinking were similar across the different types of alcoholic beverages in all but one area. The study found beer and liquor drinkers had slightly higher blood pressure levels than wine drinkers.
"In this case, wine had the advantage over beer and alcohol," says Zimlichman. "But the rise in blood pressure found among beer and alcohol drinkers was within normal limits."
Beer drinkers had the highest blood pressure levels, followed by liquor and wine drinkers. But researchers say the differences between the three groups were small (within about 2-3 points) and may not be significant.
Zimlichman says more than 90% of the people in the study who drank wine were red wine drinkers, and they were unable to compare the effects of red vs. white wine on artery health.
SOURCES: Reuven Zimlichman, MD, professor and chief of medicine and hypertension, Wolfson Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, Israel. Eighteenth Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension, New York, May 14-16, 2003.
