TRYING to make sense of alcohol studies is enough to drive you to drink. But
according to the latest survey, it doesn鈥檛 matter what is in the bottle.
Fernando Rodriguez-Artalejo of the Autonomous University of Madrid and his
team have found that drinkers are healthier regardless of whether they drink
beer, wine or spirits. The results contradict the popular belief, backed by some
studies, that wine is better for you.
Another blow to the wine industry comes from Erik Mortensen of the Institute
of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen. He suggests that wine drinkers are
healthier because of their lifestyles, rather than what they drink. And for
women with a family history of breast cancer comes the unwelcome news that for
them, alcohol may be a risk factor for the disease.
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Rodriguez-Artalejo鈥檚 team interviewed nearly 20,000 adults around Spain. The
researchers found that the more people drank, the less likely they were to
report ill health. There was no difference between beer, wine or spirits
drinkers (Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, vol 55, p
648).
When Mortensen and his colleagues looked at 693 young people in Denmark aged
between 29 and 34, they found that the wine drinkers tended to have
significantly higher IQs, better-educated parents and higher socio-economic
status than beer drinkers. Wine drinkers were also better off in terms of
personality, psychiatric symptoms and health-related behaviour (Archives of
Internal Medicine, vol 161, p 1844).
These factors, Mortensen says, may explain the apparent benefits of wine over
beer. In particular, he says, they might account for a recent series of studies
in Denmark that appeared to show that wine is healthier than beer.
Another possibility is that national differences in eating and drinking
habits are confusing the picture. 鈥淧eople with moderately large consumption of
wine tend to drink it with food,鈥� Mortensen says. 鈥淎nd some national
foods鈥攕uch as in France, Italy and Spain鈥攁re more associated with
wine drinking. Danish food is more suited to beer drinking, and there is also a
tendency to drink beer when not eating.鈥�
Meanwhile, preliminary results from Celine Vachon at the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minnesota, suggest that the sisters and daughters of women who
develop breast cancer run an increased risk of getting the disease if they drink
alcohol daily. The risk was lower for more distant relatives such as
granddaughters (Cancer, vol 92, p 240).
The results do not suggest the influence of a major gene such as BRCA1 or
BRCA2. Instead, it鈥檚 possible that one of the genes involved in alcohol
metabolism may explain the results, Vachon says.
鈥淏ut other papers say there are no genetic effects,鈥� she cautions. Vachon is
now doing a follow-up study. In the meantime, her advice is 鈥渆verything in
尘辞诲别谤补迟颈辞苍鈥�.