The tipplers among you have never been told to drink in order to keep heart attacks away. But an exciting, new study by experts at Harvard University has discovered that a glass of wine a day can help you to achieve that.
While a person's risk of heart attacks may increase in the first three hours after drinking, as it disrupts the normal heart pace, the effects may get reversed after a day of drinking moderately. Just one glass of wine a day can protect the heart by enhancing blood flow and the lining in the blood vessels, and reducing clotting.
In turn, this is related to a lower risk of heart attacks or strokes due to the brain's bleeding. In a week, there seems to be fewer threats from a stroke due to a blood clot.
Scientists define "moderate drinking" as six drinks a week. If the number increases to 15 or more for men and over eight for women every week, it could lead to greater risk of heart attacks and strokes immediately after drinking, or even in the longer term.
The Harvard team undertook studies involving an examination of 30,000 people.
"There appears to be a transiently higher risk of heart attack and strokes in the hours after drinking an alcoholic beverage but within a day after drinking, only heavy alcohol intake seems to pose a higher cardiovascular risk," said Harvard University's Elizabeth Mostofsky.
Hence, her team found that even if drinking carries an immediate risk of exposure to heart attack or stroke, the threat subsides after a day.
"If you drink, do so in moderation," Mostofsky said. "There is consistent evidence that heavy drinking raises the risk of heart attack and stroke both in the long and short term."
However, the study did not arrive at a cause-and-effect link. There only appeared to be some association between consuming alcohol and the risk of heart disease and stroke.
"Just after drinking, blood pressure rises and blood platelets become stickier, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. However, regularly drinking small amounts of alcohol in the long term appears to both increase levels of HDL cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) the so-called good cholesterol, and reduce the tendency to form blood clots," she explained.
The findings were published in the March 2 edition of the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation.
