New Delhi: If you're a woman and a teetotaler, you might want to change your mind. A couple of beers a week will make you less likely to have a heart attack according to researchers at the University of Gothenberg in Sweden.
They studied a representative selection of 1500 women for over 30 years and found that women drinking beer once or twice a week have a 30% lower risk of a heart attack compared to women who drink beer heavily and women who never drink beer.
Be warned that the research only pertains to beer. Women who drink spirits just three times a month (or more) were 50% more likely to die of cancer compared to women who drink a lower quantity of spirits.
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The women who participated were asked how often they consumed beer, wine or spirits from 'daily' to 'nothing in the past 10 years'. They were also asked to mention any illnesses they picked up during the 32 years of the study. 185 of the women had a heart attack, 162 suffered a stroke and 345 developed cancer.
According to Dr Dominique Hange, one of the authors of the study, "Previous research also suggests that alcohol in moderate quantities can have a certain protective effect, but there is still uncertainty as to whether or not this really is the case. Our results have been checked against other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which substantiates the findings."
However, Hange added a caveat suggesting that this study was not the last word on the subject. "At the same time, we were unable to confirm that moderate wine consumption has the same effect, so our results also need to be confirmed through follow-up studies," she noted.
The study was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care in July 2015.
