Studies all over the world prove that moderate consumption of beer and wine (2 to 3 glasses a day, preferable with your meals) increases your life expectancy. Researchers have proven that these moderate drinkers’ mortality risk decreases substantially for all causes of death. Not just from heart and cardiovascular diseases, but also from cancer and other chronic diseases. The association between alcohol consumption and mortality is U-shaped. Abstainers and heavy drinkers die first.

More about the studies:
* Bruneck study (Italy), reported in ‘Stroke’ magazine (May 1998 issue).
“Light to moderate alcohol consumers faced a lower risk of atherosclerosis than either abstainers or heavy drinkers.”

* British epidemiologist Richard Doll M.D. (British Medical Journal- 1998)
“The consumption of small and moderate amounts of alcohol reduces mortality from vascular disease by about a third.”

* Honolulu Heart Study (1980)
“moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a 50 % reduction in the rate of coronary heart disease.”

* Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1990) over 44,000 men and Nurses’ Health Study over 85,000 women.
The Harvard researchers conclude in 1996: “Moderate alcohol consumption is one of the best ways to cut heart attack risk.” One or two drinks per day is credited with a reduction in risk of approximately 20-40 %.

* In the first months of 1997, new studies revealed:
“moderate alcohol consumers reduce their risk for stroke, for angina pectoris, a painful precursor of heart attacks, and for peripheral arterial disease, a condition in which internal blood clots form in the extremities.

* Dr. Arthur Klatsky of Kaiser Permanente Hospital in California:
“The association between consumption of alcohol and heart disease resembled a “U” with moderate consumers at the lowest risk in the curve, and abstainers and abusers at higher risk.”

* American Cancer Society Study:
“subjects who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol (less than three drinks per day) were less likely to die during the research period than abstainers or heavy drinkers.”

* American Heart Association:
“The lowest mortality occurs in those who consume one or two drinks per day.”

* British Physician’s Study: 13-year follow up - 12,00 male doctors:
“overall death rate was at least one-sixth lower for those who had one or two drinks per day, than for abstainers”

* Danish Government Copenhagen City Heart Study: 12 year follow up, 7,234 women and 6,051 men aged 30 - 79:
“Those consuming one to six drinks per week are at the lowest risk for all causes of mortality.”

* 1997 Shanghai Cohort Study - 18,000 men:
"found a 19 % lower mortality rate for all causes in moderate drinkers".

* 1995 Nurses’ Health Study - 85,000 women:
“The findings indicate that for women as a group, light to moderate alcohol consumption offers significant survival advantage. The benefits were most pronounced for women with risk factors for coronary heart disease and those 50 years and older.”

* USA National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the largest government survey of Americans’ health and lifestyle habits:
for white males conclusion: “Moderate drinking increases the time until death from any cause by about 3 percent.”

* French Lyon Heart Study - Serge Renaud Ph.D.
“men who drank approximately 2-3 glasses a day had a 30 percent reduction in death rate from all causes.”

(Newsletter November 1998)