Women who drank up to three drinks a week before a heart attack could overcome it better, according to a study.
Women who drank from a few alcoholic drinks a month to more than three drinks a week during the year prior to having a heart attack ended up living longer than those who never drank alcohol, according to an American study.
The results, which focused on more than 1,000 women and were published in the American Journal of Cardiology, add to the growing evidence that alcohol, regardless of the type of drink, may be good for the heart.
“One interesting thing was that we didn’t see differences between different types of drinks,” said Joshua Rosenbloom, a student at Harvard Medical School who led the study.
“This latest evidence suggests that it is the alcohol itself that is beneficial,” he added.
There was an equally reduced risk of dying in the follow-up period if women drank wine, beer or high-alcoholic alcoholic beverages, Rosenbloom and his colleagues concluded.
“One drink a day is a really good goal, assuming a person can be disciplined about it,” said James O’Keefe, a cardiologist with the St. Luke Health System in Kansas City, Missouri, who was not involved in the study.
The researchers examined more than 1,200 women hospitalized for a heart attack. They were asked how many alcoholic beverages they regularly consumed, along with other questions about health and lifestyle.
After at least 10 years of follow-up, the team discovered that 44 out of every 100 women who were abstemious had died, compared with 25 out of every 100 occasional drinkers and 18 out of every 100 regular alcohol consumers.
This resulted in an approximately 35 percent lower probability of dying during the follow-up period for women who drank than those who did not.
In an earlier study that included men and women, O’Keefe discovered that people who continued to drink moderately after suffering a heart attack had better health than those who were abstemious.
“It is not necessary to assume that people need to stop drinking once they develop heart disease,” he said.
“The problem is that alcohol is a slippery terrain, and although we know that a little is good for us, a lot is really bad,” O’Keefe added.