A new study in Spain claims regular consumption of alcohol (beer, wine, or hard liquor) reduces the risk of heart disease in men by a third or more.

For this study, more than 41,000 men and women were evaluated for 10 years after being enrolled in the ongoing European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC) study.

I take issue with this study and what it could mean for Americans in general. Our lifestyles are different and I wonder if that’s enough to make these findings that much less relevant.

I thought this song was mildly offensive at first because Arrested Development’s first album and the song Tennessee was so important to me, then I got over it. I’m not mad at the Mobb Deep reference either. Maybe Reks is trying to lower his risk of heart disease but as for me Hennessy has also taken me to another place and another land…then I didn’t feel so good anymore.

Reks’ official myspace

Spain has high national alcohol consumption rates as compared to other countries. According to Larraitz Arriola, MD, from the Public Health Department of Gipuzkoa, Basque Government, San Sebastian, Spain, and colleagues:

“‘In 2003, Spain was also in sixth position in the world ranking of alcohol consumption…Spain is the world’s third largest wine producer and ninth largest beer producer.’”

“The investigators assessed the alcohol intake of 15,630 men and 25,808 women for a median of 10 years from their responses to a validated dietary history questionnaire.”

Here my thinking is people lie, especially to doctors and scientists, probably to anyone in a white coat.

“Participants reported how many glasses of beer, cider, wine, sweet liquor, distilled spirits, or fortified wines they consumed per day or week during the 12 months before they were recruited into EPIC.”

This makes me wonder who could remember how many glasses of whatever they had for a year, especially if they drank a lot?

After all this information gathering the researchers did an adjusted analysis that took other factors like smoking status, physical activity and certain prescription drugs.

They found “in men, moderate, high, and very high alcohol consumption was associated with a reduced risk for [coronary heart disease] CHD.”

The studies’ authors concluded: “Alcohol intake in men aged 29-69 years was associated with a more than 30% lower CHD incidence. This study is based on a large prospective cohort study and is free of the abstainer error.”

Hmmm, I’m pretty much over these studies. Where do these findings leave us? If I’m a non drinker should I drink more? Oh wait, that’s only for men, even though the only men studied here are Spanish. So, I guess this means nothing to me?

Studies like this seem flawed and I think it’s always important to think of who would benefit from the findings and who sponsored these studies.

Src: medscape.com

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