Considering an end-of-the-day cocktail or two? Go ahead. A new study of middle-aged women adds to the evidence that moderate alcohol consumption can benefit health.
Researchers found that moderate drinkers have a better shot at staying healthy as they grow older than alcohol abstainers. And those chances improve even more if the drinking occurs during most days of the week, according to a story posted at CNN.com.
The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, followed 14,000 mostly white women starting in 1976. Scientists concluded that those women who consumed three to 15 drinks a week while in their late 50s had up to a 28 percent better chance of avoiding chronic disease, cognitive decline, and physical and mental health disabilities at the age of 70.
Qi Sun, M.D., the study’s lead author and a nutrition researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, tells Health.com that while the findings don’t apply to nonwhite women and men, they do add to the “strong, consistent evidence” that moderate drinkers are less likely than nondrinkers or heavy drinkers to suffer from dementia, Type-2 diabetes, and heart disease.
To read the complete Health.com story, Go Here.
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