A new study by an international group of cardiologists published in the European Heart Journal found that people at high risk of cardiac events (such as heart attacks and strokes) who drink up to 35 glasses of wine per month reduce the likelihood of suffering such events. A part of the scientific community has reacted to this with severe opinions. Cardiologists from different parts of the world urge people to take work like this with caution and avoid at all costs the conclusion that drinking alcohol is healthy.
The study database was made up of 1,232 people with an average age of 68 years and at high risk of cardiovascular events such as death, myocardial infarction, stroke or heart failure. The follow-up of alcohol consumption and illnesses lasted five years. During that period, some of the subjects drank a little and others a lot. At the end of the test, people who faced a cardiovascular event were counted and this information was linked to the amount of wine drunk.
According to the study, older adults who had between three and 35 drinks per month had fewer cardiovascular events compared to those who drank fewer than three or more than 35 drinks.
Similar works present important biases in their results because almost all procedures use self-consumption surveys and the people who participate are not usually honest. On the other hand, the data from this study They are particularly accurate because the authors were able to determine the participants’ alcohol intake by using tartaric acid in their urine as a trace of consumption. Acid is an organic compound found in grapes and their fermented derivatives.
Competing interpretations
Cardiologists who read the study and were not involved in its publication have some considerations in this regard. For them, it is a valuable contribution for the consumption biomarker approach, but the results are biased at best. Some of the authors of the work have received support from organizations linked to the alcoholic beverage production sector and the wine sector in the past, they say. Doctors are especially reiterative in the following: The results in no way can be interpreted as saying that drinking alcohol contributes to having a healthy heart.
The popular idea that moderate wine consumption is associated with good heart health is erroneous. The studies, which in themselves are taken with some caution, only show that vulnerable populations who drink wine moderately have a lower risk of suffering heart attacks and similar extreme episodes. The difference is subtle, but key on a medical level. It is not possible to recommend “drinking a glass of wine a day for health”, in the same way that the consumption of vegetables and cereals is recommended.
“Alcohol consumption has numerous negative health effects, including different forms of cancer, the magnitude of which exceeds any of the supposed beneficial effects on cardiovascular mortality described to date. “In accordance with current scientific knowledge, the consumption of wine or other alcoholic beverages should never be recommended to promote health or prevent disease since, as the World Health Organization points out, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption,” explained Josep Maria Suelves, head of the Prevention and Control of Smoking and Injuries service at the Public Health Agency of Catalonia to the portal. Science Media Center (SMC) Spain.
“It cannot be concluded that alcohol is good for health nor that alcohol reduces cardiovascular risk. It can be concluded that in people (and better, in men) around 70 years old who have cardiovascular risk factors (and, therefore, a high probability of having cardiovascular health problems), drinking a glass of wine a day reduces cardiovascular events by 50% overall,” Julián Pérez Villacastín, former president of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, told the SMC.
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