Moderate Drinking may Benefit Older Women
Moderate Drinking may Benefit Women
Older women who drink alcohol in moderation are generally healthier than older women who don’t drink, according to the results of a new Australian study.
For seven years, a team of investigators at the Research Centre for Gender, Health and Ageing at Australia’s University of Newcastle followed the drinking habits of more than 12,400 women who were at least 70 years old at the outset of the study.
The results:
- Women who drank infrequently or not at all were far more likely to die of any cause than women who drank a maximum of two drinks per day, three to six days each week
- Non-drinkers and infrequent drinkers were also in poorer health compared to the moderate drinkers
A Reuters Health report on this study noted the results of three other studies that help put the Newcastle results into perspective.
In a recent Australian study, researchers found that older heavy drinkers who cut their drinking back to a moderate level tended to improve their health, but older people who begin drinking did not experience clear health benefits. Another Australian study found that most elderly women who drink alcohol tend to be wine drinkers, while research in Denmark showed that healthy diets are common among women who drink wine.
So once again, the results of an alcohol study leave us with questions: Are benefits due to alcohol intake, a healthy diet, or perhaps even the sociability that often accompanies moderate drinking? The answer might be “all three,” but isn’t it about time someone designed a study that will address these questions that come up again and again?
