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Women who drink alcohol have a good chance of surviving after myocardial infarction
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Scientists from the United States found that women who drink alcohol have a good chance of surviving a myocardial infarction.
A study of employees at Harvard University interviewed more than 1.2 thousand women who were hospitalized with a heart attack, about their health and lifestyle, including about alcohol consumption. As a result of the survey, the participants of the experiment were divided into 3 groups: practically non-drinkers, consuming from 1 to 3 standard alcohol doses (about 14 grams in terms of pure alcohol) per week and drinking more than 3 standard doses weekly.
According to European standards, one serving of alcohol is 290 g of beer, or 125 ml of wine, or 25 ml of strong alcohol.
After that, they were observed for 10 years.
It turned out that 18% of women died in the group of the most drinkers during the observation period, 25% in the group of moderately drinking women, and 44% among non-drinkers. Thus, the use of alcohol reduced the probability of death in the 10-year period after a heart attack by 35%.
The research leader Joshua Rosenbloom noted that the revealed regularity did not depend on the type of alcoholic beverage, so it is likely that the prophylactic effect in this case is the alcohol itself.
Therefore, the researchers recommended not to force patients with myocardial infarction to completely abandon alcohol. It is very important to observe great caution in the amount of alcohol consumed, as exceeding the recommended doses of alcohol can lead to the development of dependence, as well as hypertension, stroke, some forms of cancer and other diseases.