- Researchers find moderate drinking may help relieve stress.
- Study could explain past research finding better health outcomes for light-to-moderate drinkers.
- Researchers examined data on more than 50,000 people enrolled in the Mass General Brigham Biobank.
Light to moderate alcohol consumption may lower the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke by reducing activity in parts of the brain that respond to stress, new research claims.
But researchers caution that alcohol also carries health risks.
“We are not advocating the use of alcohol to reduce the risk of heart attacks or strokes, because of other concerning effects of alcohol on health,” study author Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, a cardiologist and co-director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a news release.
Instead, researchers wanted to understand how light to moderate alcohol consumption (one to two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women) reduces cardiovascular disease, as seen in other
“If we could find the mechanism, the goal would be to find other approaches that could replicate or induce alcohol’s protective cardiac effects without the adverse impacts of alcohol,” said Tawakol.
In this observational study, researchers examined data on more than 50,000 people enrolled in the Mass General Brigham Biobank.
People filled out a survey at the time of enrollment, which included a question about their alcohol consumption during the prior year.
Researchers obtained information from participants’ medical records about any major cardiovascular events they experienced during the study period. This included heart attack, stroke, peripheral vascular disease and heart failure.
They found that light-to-moderate drinkers had a lower risk of major cardiovascular events, taking into