THE POWER OF A PINT A DAY

GOOD NEWS for those who love their pints: the key to good heart health could be drinking a glass of beer a day. Published in the journal nutrition, metabolism & cardiovascular disease, scientists from the Mediterranean Neurological Institute in Italy claimed that drinking moderate amounts of beer daily could reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 25 percent. The team conducted a comprehensive review of more than 15O studies and concluded that drinking up to two 1.4 pints of beer a day for men, and half of that for women, could have a beneficial effect on heart health. They also found that drinking these amounts daily made no difference to people’s chances of getting dementia, cancer, or other diseases. The scientists wrote: “Unless they are at high risk for alcohol-related cancers of alcohol dependency, there is no reason to discourage healthy adults who are already light or moderate beer consumers from continuing. Data reported in this document show evidence for no harm of moderate beer consumption for major chronic conditions and some benefit against cardiovascular disease.” The researchers also found that while drinking was linked to a slight increase in the risk of mouth, throat and breast cancers, it has no effect on the odds of developing other forms of the disease: “There is no evidence that beer drinking is different from other types of alcoholic beverages in respect to risk for some cancers. Evidence consistently suggests a J-shaped relationship between alcohol consumption (including beer) and all-cause mortality, with lower risk for moderate alcohol consumers than for abstainers or heavy drinkers.”