The Surprising Heart-Healthy Beverage
Move over, vino, there's a new heart-healthy beverage grabbing a stool at the bar. The stats are in and—drum roll, please—beer is just as good for your heart as red wine, according to an analysis of 18 studies on alcohol consumption.
"After dissecting the effects of alcohol in wine and beer, the two beverages appeared to be quite comparable," explains Giovanni de Gaetano, M.D., Ph.D., and director of Laboratory di Ricerca where the study was conducted.
The researchers' calculations found that if you drink moderately—a little more than a pint of beer or up to two glasses of wine a day—you're 30 percent less likely than nondrinkers to suffer from cardiovascular events like strokes, heart attacks and heart disease. Credit beer's alcohol, polyphenols (antioxidants) and other non-alcoholic substances. And while wine and beer have different genetics, and different polyphenols, their similarity is the alcohol, which researchers think could be the main player, according to a press release on the study.
There's no room for keg races here, though. The research demonstrated that overdrinking—four or more glasses of wine or beer—brings you out of that protective cardiovascular window and puts your heart at risk.
Source: Men's Health News