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Will You Live Longer With Half A Glass Of Wine?
Studies have shown that drinking a small quantity of alcohol may actually be good for you. Many of us have been brought up
to believe that drinking alcohol is bad for your health but new research has now linked a half glass of wine daily with longer
life. The research which was carried out in the Netherlands found that middle aged men who drank up to half a glass of wine,
which equated to 20grams each day, saw their life expectancy prolonged by almost five years.
This was compared with men who
were not drinking any alcohol at all. However for those drinking more than this each day the increase in life expectancy
was somewhat lower. More information on these findings has been published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The 1,373 randomly selected men that were studied in this research were all born from 1960 to 2000. The researchers continually
monitored these men’s life expectancies and cardiovascular health at the age of fifty. Their lifestyle habits were studied and
monitored.
The scientists looked at how their diets and drinking habits were impacting their health and life expectancy.
Smoking habits were also considered. The amount of alcohol that was drunk, the type of alcohol and how often were all things
that were looked at as well as whether the men smoked or had had any serious illnesses.
At the end of the study it was found that consumption of up to 20gms of any alcohol per day led to an increase in years of an
average of two years when compared to those who did not drink any alcohol. However when drinking up to 20gms of wine each day,
the life expectancy of these men increased by a further 2 and a half years over those drinking other forms of alcohol such as
beer and spirits. They also linked wine drinking with a lower risk of dying from coronary diseases.
Of the 1,373 men studied, 1,130 died during the study and half of those deaths were caused by cardiovascular diseases.
It was also found that the proportion of men who drank alcohol in 2000 was 86% compared to just 45% in 1960. The same research
was carried out for wine consumption and it was found that in 2000 the percentage of those drinking wine was 44% with just
2% drinking it 40 years earlier. It was also concluded that alcohol had positive effects no matter what other lifestyle habits
the men had.
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