Alcohol in moderation reduces deaths in men

Product Suppliers - Credible trusted supplier in Asia, source at HKTDC's eMarketplace! - www.hktdc.com Brain Training Games - Improve memory and attention with scientific brain games. Free Trial - www.lumosity.com The latest findings from the US Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a prospective study of 51,529 US male health professionals, are published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal and they show that, having survived a first heart attack, men who drank approximately two alcoholic drinks a day over a long period of time had a 14% lower risk of death from any cause and a 42% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease than non-drinkers. The first author of the study, Dr Jennifer Pai, assistant professor of medicine at Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and a research associate at Harvard School of Public Health, said: "Our findings clearly demonstrate that long-term moderate alcohol consumption among men who survived a heart attack was associated with a reduced risk of total and cardiovascular mortality. We also found that among men who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol prior to a heart attack, those who continued to consume alcohol 'in moderation' afterwards also had better long term prognosis." Although it is already known that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and death in the healthy population, so far it has been unclear whether it may also be related to lower death rates among people who have established heart disease. Until now, there has been no prospective study that has measured alcohol drinking both before and after a heart attack, with long-term follow-up. Dr Pai and her colleagues looked at a subset of 1818 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who had survived a first heart attack between 1986 and 2006. The researchers followed them for up to 20 years from the time of the heart attack. During this period 468 men died.