December 21, 2006
Drinking Makes You Live Longer
Alcohol in moderation may extend life span, researchers find
Moderate drinking may lengthen your life, while too much may shorten it, researchers from Italy report. Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.
According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
I’ve got a theory on this. Moderate drinking is a stress-reducing activity. Much like exercise, or simple relaxation, when you sit down with a beer or glass of wine, you let yourself release the stress you’ve been building up all day long. There may be some actual scientific health effects of moderate drinking, to be sure, but I don’t think that can easily account for an 18% reduction.
Either way, I’m all for it.
Hat Tip: Below The Beltway
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