Longevity Briefs: Does light alcohol consumption protect from cardiovascular disorders?

Longevity briefs provides a short summary of a novel research, medicine, or technology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.

Why is this research important: A lot of studies have shown that light increase in alcohol consumption may protect from cardiovascular diseases and reduce chances of strokes and heart attacks. However, the data analysis in majority of those studies was biased, as most of them did not take into the account sick quitter phenomenon (non-drinkers in control group tend to be less healthy thank light drinkers, as they abstain from drinking due to health issues in a first place), other harmful effects of alcohol and inappropriate selection of reference group.

What did the researchers do: In this study, researches analysed data from 490,255 subjects. After thorough removal of uncompleted or biased entrances of data, researches compared the amount of drinking to all-cause mortality and the possibility of cardiovascular diseases.

Key takeaway(s) from this research: Among initial non-drinkers, beginning to participating in light/moderate drinking may provide some resistance against strokes and heart attacks. However, the negative effects of alcohol far outweigh any probable beneficial effects, with increasing the chances of neuropsychiatric disorders, malignancy and infectious diseases.