Drinking (Just A Bit) Cuts Stroke Risk in Women

Can you say “moderation”? Good. Can you drink in moderation, meaning half to one and a half glasses of wine a day? Excellent. Because moderation makes all the difference in the ways that alcohol influences your health. Researchers at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital have determined that women who consumed low to moderate amounts of alcohol had a lower risk of stroke than women who never drank. No, more alcohol was  not associated with reduced risk of stroke. A hospital news release reports that researchers looked at data from 83,578 female participants in the Nurses’ Health Study, focusing on diet, including self-reported alcohol consumption, lifestyle factors and stroke events. Approximately 30 percent of women reported that they never drank alcohol, 35 percent reported very low levels of consumption, 37 percent drank moderately, and curiously, only 11 percent of women reported drinking more than the equivalent of one mixed drink per day on average. For purposes of the study, low consumption was considered less than 4.9 grams daily (less than ½ glass of wine per day).  Moderate consumption was considered 5 to 14.9 grams daily (½ to 1 ½ glasses of wine, one serving of a mixed drink, or one beer). Read more from Brigham and Women’s Hospital.