Alcoholics have something to cheer about! A recent study has found out those men who drink one to two pegs of hard liquor in a day and at least three to four times a week have less chance of getting heart attack than men who don’t drink at all.
Also it was found that men who drink one or more glasses of red wine a day had a staggering 46 per cent lower-than-average risk for stroke, said Kenneth Mukamal, Harvard Medical School professor and an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
But the research – conducted by Mukamal- also suggest that men who knock down three or more hard drinks a day, basically big boozers, are nearly 45 per cent more likely to get stroke than men who abstain from it.
Mukamal, whose study took 14 years to complete tracked 38,000 men, ages 40-75, said he was surprised to learn that lower levels of alcohol consumption did not necessarily correspond to a lower incidence of stroke. On the contrary, he said, for moderate drinkers, the pattern of their drinking mattered more than how much they drank.
Mukamal's earlier findings had shown that moderate but sporadic drinkers were also less likely to develop diabetes and coronary heart disease.
It was discovered that only those who drank, say, every other day showed a lower rate for strokes, he said.
Mukamal said: “What we can say, at least for men is that one or two drinks every other day seems to be the way to go in terms of cardiovascular health.”
Another discovery, he said, was the seemingly salubrious effect of red wine. Till date, no studies had shown red wine to be good for the heart - none, that is, until this one.
