New Study Challenges Alcohol's 'Heart Healthy' Benefits
nalyzing data from a decade-long study on the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption, researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil concluded that only white people experience a lowered risk of heart disease from drinking alcohol, Reuters reported Sept. 8.
Dr. Flavio Fuchs and his colleagues examined data from 14,506 blacks and whites in the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. Among black men, the study showed that alcohol consumption increased the risk of heart disease and death from heart disease.
According to the study, black men were 13 percent more likely to experience heart disease for every 12 ounces of beer consumed daily. On the other hand, white men who drank the same amount were 22 percent less likely to develop heart disease.
Furthermore, black men who drank about 13 to 19 glasses of wine a week were more than twice as likely as their non-drinking peers to have heart disease. However, white men who drank similar amounts of wine were half as likely to experience heart disease as white men who did not drink.
However, Fuchs said the study's finding doesn't necessarily mean that race is a determining factor in the heart-protective effects of drinking. For instance, similar results were not found among black women.
"We believe that there is not a race-specific effect of ethanol," he said. "There is no scientific background to suppose that blacks would respond so differently to ethanol."
Rather, Fuchs said alcohol's contrasting effects on blacks and whites "raise the question of whether the cardioprotective effect of alcohol is real or may be confounded by lifestyle characteristics of drinkers."
The study is published in the Sept. 1, 2004 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
