[IP] Light Drinking Tied To Mortality Drop... (UP TO 65%)

[Rick Stockton <email @ redacted>]

Some of you might remember my post (May 21) explaining how alcohol 
causes a strong drop in BG for a few hours. In that post I offered a 
personal opinion that, due to our higher cardiovascular risks, there was 
probably GREAT benefit for us in the habit of a daily drink.... as long 
as we "feed the low" with carbs while the liver is working on the alcohol.

There is now an analysis of data from the San Antonio Heart Study, 
confirming and quantifying these benefits. Data were adjusted for age, 
BMI, smoking, geographic location, gender, socioeconomic status, and 
ethnicity (Mexican American vs. European American descent; the summary 
does not describe African American or Asian Americans as participating 
in the study). I am quoting from Damian McNamara in "Clinical 
Psychiatric News", but you can all see a shorter version, with many 
paragraphs identical, at  
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/issue169/item15.shtml

Non-diabetic light drinkers (7-14 drinks per week) had a 20% reduction 
in mortality after a mean follow-up of 14 years. Diabetics (T2 and T1, 
probably only a small portion IDDM) had a 35% REDUCTION IN RISK. 
"Diabetics who reported drinking a small amount more frequently--such as 
having a drink daily or almost daily-- reaped the highest benefit (a 46% 
reduction) compared with diabetic abstainers."

The next paragraph, however, points out that beer drinking provided no 
significant mortality improvement in any of the study subgroups, and 
mixed drinks/liquor was much less beneficial for diabetics (only a 23% 
reduction in risk, and these drinks were associated with a 38% greater 
risk in non-diabetics). It then states that "Diabetics who reported 
drinking any amount of wine had the greatest benefit--a 65% reduction in 
mortality...."

I believe that that rest of this sentence should have said "in 
comparison to diabetic abstainers", not "compared with no reduction in 
nondiabetic wine drinkers". (The study found a 20% reduction in 
mortality for light drinkers without diabetes. Mixed drinks/liquor was 
worse than abstaining, and beer drinking provided no significant 
improvements in mortality. So the 20% improvement for non-diabetics MUST 
have been dominiated by improvements for the wine drinkers.)

The study didn't collect data on red vs. white. (I'll drink either 
color, as long as they taste YUMMY! Although other, smaller studies 
suggest that red is better.) I've no idea what might cause the huge 
difference between Beer and Wine.
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