An interesting alcohol study.

[Ripped Barbarian]

BBC News - Alcohol 'protects men's hearts'

Quote

Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.

Nothing new there except,
Something of key importance, which hasn't been done in previous studies:

Quote

Crucially the research team claim to have eliminated the "sick abstainers" risk by differentiating between those who had never drunk and those whom ill-health had forced to quit. This has been used in the past to explain fewer heart-related deaths among drinkers on the basis that those who are unhealthy to start with are less likely to drink.

When you look at this fact:

Quote

The same benefits were not seen in women, who suffer fewer heart problems than men to start with.

You realise it is down to hormones.
Alcohol is known to have effects on hormones, it increases SHBG and thus lowers free testosterone.
Men with high free testosterone are known to be at risk of heart disease (as well as prostate cancer etc)
Certain hormonal states effect LDL/HDL ratios (which is implicated in heart disease) and it's known people messing with steroids can screw their blood results up.

Can anyone think of any other reasons?
I did consider it has some sort of hormetic effect, or diuretic effect on lowering blood pressure but then it would have benefits in females as well...

It's a shame i can't enjoy alcohol because i have a severe diuretic reaction to it, leading to states of near hypovolemic shock.

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Quote

Experts are critical, warning heavy drinking can increase the risk of other diseases, with alcohol responsible for 1.8 million deaths globally per year.

UK experts said the findings should be treated with caution because they do not take into account ill-health from a range of other diseases caused by excess drinking.

"Whilst moderate alcohol intake can lower the risk of having a heart attack, coronary heart disease is just one type of heart disease. Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, is associated with high alcohol intake and can lead to a poor quality of life and premature death," said the British Heart Foundation's senior cardiac nurse, Cathy Ross.

"The heart is just one of many organs in the body. While alcohol could offer limited protection to one organ, abuse of it can damage the heart and other organs such as the liver, pancreas and brain."

Pretty much puts it all into perspective for me!

[Ripped Barbarian]

Yes but that's related to high intake.

The same can be said for most things...
Vit A, calories, water...

The study indicates a couple of drinks a day is beneficial, in line with government guidance (3-4 units a day)

Quote

Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, is associated with high alcohol intake and can lead to a poor quality of life and premature death

Obv if you become an alcoholic you're not going to do yourself any favours....

[NU_nutrition_TS]

I'm not saying don't have a drink in moderation, I just don't think attributing health benefits to it is a good enough excuse to drink per se. I am dubious that there are any direct health benefits even to moderate drinking that could not be explained by other factors.

For instance, the most popular ad hoc explanation for the French Paradox (high saturated fat consumption yet low heart disease) is that they consume alcohol (red wine). To a lesser extent this same paradox exists in Spain. So you could easily turn that on its head and say that it is the saturated fat that is protective not the alcohol and the only reason the mainstream say it is the alcohol is because they are so convinced that saturated fat is unhealthy!

[Ripped Barbarian]

Quote

I'm not saying don't have a drink in moderation, I just don't think attributing health benefits to it is a good enough excuse to drink per se. I am dubious that there are any direct health benefits even to moderate drinking that could not be explained by other factors.

For instance, the most popular ad hoc explanation for the French Paradox (high saturated fat consumption yet low heart disease) is that they consume alcohol (red wine). To a lesser extent this same paradox exists in Spain. So you could easily turn that on its head and say that it is the saturated fat that is protective not the alcohol and the only reason the mainstream say it is the alcohol is because they are so convinced that saturated fat is unhealthy!

I would have thought studies like the one i posted largely controlled for other factors, given a single population.

Certainly when you compare different cultures on single factors there are going to be massive difference in other factors.

The french paradox won't be for one reason, if it's even a paradox at all (in your view) it could be anything from soil mineral content (i.e low selenium in finland causing heart disease) to phytochemicals or pollution or even something crazy like a hormetic benefit from radionuclides from their intensive nuclear power industry.

One simplistic way to look at it however....
Simply copy the eating, social and leisure habbits of countries and areas with low heart disease.

You won't see me copying a glasgow diet of fried food, fags and (high amounts of) booze because they have some of the worst heart disease in the world. (and low vit D from reduced sun exposure too)

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Quote

I would have thought studies like the one i posted largely controlled for other factors, given a single population.

From the brief write up it would appear the alcohol consumption was based on a survey, so any other confounding lifestyle or dietary factors would have also been determined by the same survey. The only novel thing they did was to allow for people who stopped drinking through illness. Since no other confounding variable was mentioned in the article it is difficult to draw any conclusions from it. Maybe the drinkers were out socialising and had less stress. Maybe the non-drinkers spent more time indoors out of the sun (vitamin D deficiency) and had more stress. Maybe the stress-free, socialising drinkers were eating high fat foods with their drinks. Maybe the stressed, stay-at-home non-drinkers didn't drink because they were more health-conscious so ate a low fat diet and slathered on the sun cream when they went in the sun or stayed indoors - who knows!