New Research Reveals that Drinking is Only Good For...

 Drinking only good for women over 65

Study finds medicinal qualities of daily tipple have been overstated - except in older females

FOR those who swear by the medicinal properties of their favourite tipple, here’s a sobering thought.

      A new study claims that the benefits of moderate drinking have been overstated.



Only women over 65 who have a small glass of wine a day make gains – and even these may have been exaggerated by existing studies, scientists say.

      Researchers from Britain and Australia looked at data on more than 50,000 people aged 50 or over who were asked about their drinking and checked up on for around ten years after that.

    The study suggests that most people get little or no protection against disease from alcohol, even at moderate drinking levels.

    The exception was older women who consume around a small glass of wine a day and men aged 50-64 who have five pints of beer a week.


 

 Previous studies have suggested that, compared with non-drinkers, small amounts of alcohol may protect the heart, in contrast with heavy drinking which carries risks such as heart failure and stroke.

    But the latest study published in medical journal The BMJ claims the protective effects of light drinking have been skewed by the selection available for comparison.

     For example, non-drinkers may include people who had been forced to stop drinking because of ill-health. Using the Health Survey for England 1998-2008, researchers analysed samples of 52,891 adults by sex and age group (50-64 years of age and 65 years and over) and their average weekly alcohol consumption.

    Compared with teetotallers, protective associations were ‘minimal’ in men aged 50-64 who drank 15-20 units on average per week.

    The study found women aged 65 and over who drank ten units or less on average per week – which is seven small glasses of wine – had a ‘significant reduction’ in risk of death.


  

However, the findings have been criticised by British statisticians.

    Sir David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, said the conclusions were not backed up by the data.

He said: ‘All groups consuming less than 20 units a week experienced lower mortality rates than the lifelong teetotallers. But since there are not many teetotallers, there is large uncertainty about what the true underlying relative risks are.

    ‘All the observed data are compatible with the kind of 15 to 20 per cent protection that has been previously suggested, and the authors are not justified in claiming there is no protection apart from some specific groups.’