Red wine’s not the secret to great heart health in old age

Talk about a let down: new research has revealed the correlation between moderate drinking and better health outcomes is slim to none.

While it may be true that people who drink moderately are healthier than those who don’t, Canadian researchers examined 45 studies of drinking behaviour and health outcomes and found little evidence of a casual benefit from drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. 

“We can’t ‘prove’ it one way or the other,”said Tim Stockwell, director of the Centre for Addictions Research at the University of Victoria in Canada.

“But we can say there are grounds for a healthy skepticism around the idea that moderate drinking is good for you.

“People who continue to be moderate drinkers later in life are healthier (and) we know that people generally cut down on drinking as they age, especially if they have health problems.”

But the new research has cast more doubt to the widely reported and beloved tidbit that moderate drinking is good for your health. 

Drinking reasonable amounts of red wine has long been touted as producing near supernatural health benefits but evidence for the actual effect has long been lean as the research has largely been based on observational studies. 

Scientists use observational studies to find correlations between differing variables in the environment. Many studies found people who drank moderately seemed to have better health outcomes on a variety of measures than people who didn’t drink at all. 

But sometimes the research can conclude informal, and often false stories from these types of observations.

For example, the research linking smoking to lung cancer was largely of this sort but sometimes, this type of research can lead to fake results.

An observational study might tell you that people with white hair are much more at risk of heart attack than those who don’t have white hair, but this doesn’t mean white hair is causing heart attacks.

It simply tells us what we already know: older people are both more likely to have white hair and more likely to have heart health issues.

Instead of using observational studies, Stockwell and his team looked at group studies, which tracked a group of the same people and their behaviours over a set period of time.

They found the correlation between moderate drinking and some beneficial health outcomes may be untrue, just like the connection between white hair and heart attacks.

While noting that people probably shouldn’t start drinking for its claimed benefits, Stockman said, “The risks of low-level drinking are small.”

But, he added: “The notion that one or two drinks a day is doing us good may just be wishful thinking.”

Will you give up your glass a day?