“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
Moderate drinkers have a 32 percent lower risk of dying from a heart attack than those who don't drink alcohol.
So said Benjamin Franklin. Happy? Certainly. But healthy as well? Maybe.
The beneficial effects of drinking alcohol have been guessed at from the earliest days of humankind. When the nomadic hunter-gatherers of millennia ago began to settle down as farmers, they knew nothing about sanitation and maintaining a clean water supply. Water-borne diseases must have been widespread. But these same people may have realized empirically that if they drank their fermented beverages–beer and wine–illnesses were not as common. Scientists now know that the boiling of water in brewing, the alcohol present in both beer and wine and the natural acidity in both drinks will either kill or reduce the growth of illness-forming bacteria.
The health benefits of drinking of alcoholic beverages may have become even more significant, as people gathered in more and more crowded conditions. Beer was certainly safer to drink than plain water, from the Middle Ages right through to the Industrial Revolution. Brewers didn’t realize it, but in boiling the brew, they’d stumbled on the most fundamental of public health measures.
As a further endorsement of alcohol’s beneficial use to humans, beer and wine became a part of almost every religion’s sacraments, holidays and feasts. In Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, in the form of its monks and nuns, became the proprietor of vineyards and the provider of wine and beer. Beer, in particular, added nutrients and vitamins–as well as pleasure–to an otherwise sparse diet. Many monasteries continue their brewing pursuits to this day.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, doctors and researchers have sought scientific evidence to understand the association between alcohol and human health. As the studies pile up, we can say something we wouldn’t have said twenty years ago: you’re better off including alcohol in your diet than not. And beer is a natural choice for the health-conscious 21st century.
Alcohol and the Heart
Observers have long suspected that drinking alcohol was somehow good for the heart. Just how good and why, they weren’t sure until late in the 20th century. To date, over sixty studies throughout the world have investigated in detail if drinking alcoholic beverages did indeed lead to more healthy hearts, and how.
Alcohol and the Elderly
A study conducted in New Haven, CT, between 1982-1996 found that moderate alcohol consumption was associated with decreased risk of heart failure among the elderly.
Dr. Jerome L. Abramson of Emory University and his team of researchers studied 2,235 elderly men and women with an average age of 74. They found that compared to non-drinkers, those in the group who drank at least 1.5 drinks daily had a 20-50 percent less chance to develop heart failure.
Another study on the effects of drinking alcohol and aging conducted in Germany also found that alcohol was good for the heart. Dr. Wolfgang Koenig of the University of Ulm’s German Center for Research on Aging published a report in the July 2001 issue of Epidemiology. Dr. Koenig and his researchers studied 800 men and women, one-third of whom had established heart and blood vessel problems. Blood samples were collected and the results showed that alcohol improves the balance of lipids (fats) in the blood, and reduces blood’s tendency to clot.
It turned out that alcohol drinkers had higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, often called the “good” cholesterol, which is a protective form of blood fat. The alcohol drinkers also had lower levels of fibrinogen, a protein that promotes blood clots, as well as elevated levels of other molecules (platelets) that prevent the clotting and stickiness of blood cells.
