Revisiting Wine Consumption

A research group believes they have teased out the effects of wine consumption on life expectancy from all the confounding and related effects of diet and lifestyle. It'll take a few more such studies to convince me that this isn't just another artifact relating to inadvertent low-level calorie restriction, however. "Drinking up to half a glass of wine a day may boost life expectancy by five years ... The Dutch authors base their findings on a total of 1,373 randomly selected men whose cardiovascular health and life expectancy at age 50 were repeatedly monitored between 1960 and 2000. ... The researchers found that light long term alcohol consumption of all types - up to 20g a day - extended life by around two extra years compared with no alcohol at all. Extended life expectancy was slightly less for those who drank more than 20g. And men who drank only wine, and less than half a glass of it a day, lived around 2.5 years longer than those who drank beer and spirits, and almost five years longer than those who drank no alcohol at all. Drinking wine was strongly associated with a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and death from all causes. These results held true, irrespective of socioeconomic status, dietary and other lifestyle habits, factors long thought to influence the association between wine drinking and better health."

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429205609.htm

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