National Post

Slow and steady the way to alcohol’s health benefits: study
It has become almost an assumption lately that a little alcohol is actually good for one’s health. A new Canadian review of 30 years of research into the question paints a foggier picture, however, finding conflicting evidence on drinking and heart disease, and a complex message for doctors and the public.

The bottom line is that moderate volumes of alcohol do seem associated with fewer heart attacks and other cardiac illness — but only if that volume is spread out evenly, with one or two drinks a day, rather than clumped together in sporadic binges, says Jürgen Rehm, lead author of the study just published in the journal Addiction.

That caveat — that it is not just low average consumption that might help, but a regular, modest pattern of drinking — is a major one, since less than 5% of North Americans are estimated to follow such consistent drinking patterns, noted Prof. Rehm in an interview.

“If you want to reap all those benefits, you have to drink it almost as a medicine,” said the head of social and epidemiological research at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). (Photo: Fotolia)