RED, white or pink, the message is the same – drinking wine keeps you alive.
A team of Danes has found that the risk of dying from all causes is twice as high in people who never drink wine, compared to light or moderate drinkers.
Sadly, the team, led by Morten Grønæk of the Danish Epidemiology Centre in Copenhagen, found no equivalent advantages to drinking beer or spirits. Rather, they say in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, drinking more than three shots of spirits a day was associated with an increased risk of death.
This somewhat mixed news was established by persuading more than 13 000 Danish men and women to complete a lifestyle questionnaire. Interestingly, the mortality rate from heart disease in Denmark has fallen by 30 per cent over the past 15 years, and while the overall consumption of alcohol has remained static, the intake of wine has almost doubled since 1975.
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Wine drinkers take note, “moderate” was defined as three to five glasses a day.
