Don't give up your daily glass of wine, Danish studies show

(March 2, 2004)

Moderate drinkers who cut out their usual one or two glasses of alcohol a day run a greater risk of developing heart disease than those who continue to drink in moderation, the results of two Danish studies published this week showed.

"The risk of dying of a heart attack increases among those who consume a moderate amount of alcohol and then stop drinking. And those who never drink improve their protection against heart disease if they start to drink a little," professor Morten Groenbaek, who summarized the two studies in the medical journal Epidemiology, told AFP.

The studies, carried out in Denmark in the 1980s among 6,644 men and 8,010 women aged 25 to 98, show that those who stop drinking run a 29-percent greater risk of developing heart disease.

The studies followed the men's and women's lifestyles, food habits and health conditions at two five-year intervals.

"Alcohol consumption in small quantities can be compared to medicines that reduce cholesterol levels or to a change in dietary habits aimed at preventing death by cardiac arrest," Groenbaek, who works for the National Institute of Public Health, said.

In line with other research on the issue, Groenbaek said he believed that "moderate consumption of red wine" in particular helped prevent coronary disease.

Heavy drinkers who abuse alcohol run a 32-percent greater chance of dying of disease, in particular heart disease, he said.

Danish health authorities and the National Association for the Prevention of Heart Disease reacted cautiously to the report.

They did not contest the results, but said they would not promote alcohol consumption as a method of attaining good health.

"It is difficult to advise people to drink when alcoholism is one of the big health problems in Danish society," a chief researcher with the Association for the Prevention of Heart Disease, Joergen Videbaek, said.

According to the Danish public health agency, average alcohol consumption in the Scandinavian country has remained constant in the past 30 years, at around 11 or 12 litres (375 to 400 US ounces) of pure alcohol per inhabitant over the age of 14 per year.